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Polymer-Drug Conjugates: Targeting Cancer

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Abstract

Synthetic polymers are well known through their widespread use in biomedical materials, for example hip prostheses, contact lenses, vascular grafts and most recently as scaffolds for tissue engineering. Polymers are also routinely used as pharmaceutical excipients. Both these applications are far removed from the concept of “disease targeting.” However, the last decade has seen the emergence of several novel classes of therapeutic that exploit the properties of natural or synthetic water soluble polymers to provide opportunities for improved chemotherapy. They include biologically active polymeric drugs, polymer-drug conjugates, block copolymer micelles, polymer-protein conjugates and polymer-based non-viral vectors are currently being designed for gene delivery.

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© 2002 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Duncan, R. (2002). Polymer-Drug Conjugates: Targeting Cancer. In: Muzykantov, V., Torchilin, V. (eds) Biomedical Aspects of Drug Targeting. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-4627-3_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-4627-3_10

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-5312-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-4627-3

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