Novel nanocarriers for topical drug delivery: investigating delivery efficiency and distribution in skin using two-photon microscopy

Paper in proceeding, 2011

The complex structure of skin represents an effective barrier against external environmental factors, as for example, different chemical and biochemical compounds, yeast, bacterial and viral infections. However, this impermeability prevents efficient transdermal drug delivery which limits the number of drugs that are able to penetrate the skin efficiently. Current trends in drug application through skin focus on the design and use of nanocarriers for transport of active compounds. The transport systems applied so far have several drawbacks, as they often have low payload, high toxicity, a limited variability of inclusion molecules, or long degradation times. The aim of these current studies is to investigate novel topical drug delivery systems, e.g. nanocarriers based on cyclic oligosaccharides - cyclodextrins (CD) or iron (III)-based metal-organic frameworks (MOF). Earlier studies on cell cultures imply that these drug nanocarriers show promising characteristics compared to other drug delivery systems. In our studies, we use two-photon microscopy to investigate the ability of the nanocarriers to deliver compounds through ex-vivo skin samples. Using near infrared light for excitation in the so called optical window of skin allows deep-tissue visualization of drug distribution and localization. In addition, it is possible to employ two-photon based fluorescence correlation spectroscopy for quantitative analysis of drug distribution and concentrations in different cell layers.