The smart chemistry of stimuli-responsive polymeric carriers for target drug delivery applications

This particular chapter focuses on the smart chemistry aspects of several types of stimuli-responsive polymeric carriers. Depending on the requisite features and applications, polymer-based responsive carriers can be easily developed by click chemistry, thiol-ene and thiol-eyn coupling chemistry, macromere reactions/chemistry, enzyme-based reactions, and others. With ever increasing scientific knowledge and awareness, research is underway around the globe to design new types of stimuli (external/internal) responsive polymeric carriers for biotechnological, biomedical, and pharmaceutical applications. Stimuli-responsive polymeric carriers have been classified into four major categories, that is, (1) physical, (2) chemical, (3) biological, and (4) dual (combination of any of the first three classes). Among various classes, temperature-responsive carriers, electrical-responsive carriers, photo/light-responsive carriers, pH-responsive carriers, redox-responsive carriers, enzyme-responsive carriers, glucose-responsive carriers, magnetic responsive carriers, and ultrasound-responsive carriers are of supreme interest and discussed here in this chapter. A comprehensive effort has been made to summarize the smart chemistry of polymeric carriers followed by a detailed discussion on various types of stimuli-responsive polymeric carriers with special reference to the targeted drug delivery applications. Toward the end of the chapter, information is also given on their future perspectives.