Characterizing particulate drug-delivery carriers with atomic force microscopy

This work discusses the benefits of employing an atomic force microscope (AFM) in the characterization of the particulate-type drug-delivery carriers. AFM can provide invaluable information about the physicochemical characteristics of the carriers that play an important role in determining the performance of the drug delivery systems (DDS). A lot of this information cannot be obtained from other characterization techniques due to the unique ability of the AFM to probe nanometer scale features at the molecular level. There has already been a significant amount of work in the development of the DDS and the upcoming of AFM as a powerful characterizing tool provides a new inspiration in this area. This will definitely add to the understanding of the DDS and will influence the future designs of the drug carriers towards the development of better and more efficient DDS.