Dear Colleagues,

Treatment of patients very often requires the use of pharmaceutically-active substances, to be administered in a controlled way. The chosen drugs are usually linked with, or imbedded in, a matrix, allowing, in many cases, not only the control of the delivery of a drug carrier system to a specific target site, but also of the following release of the active agent at that location. The subsequent and often-unsolved challenge, however, is the fate of the carrier matrices. Various carriers, with a number of them being biodegradable, have been developed over the years. Nevertheless, some tend to accumulate in a patient’s body, showing no or only retarded degradation effects; some are degraded into harmful, or at least tissue irritating, fragments. Hence, current research efforts are directed to enhance the biodegradability of such matrices or to develop novel carrier systems without the named drawbacks. Optimal future carrier materials should, not only be equipped with the ability to deliver and release the drugs solely where and when being needed, but should also be provided with degradation timers, based on their molecular designs, leading to harmless fragmentation products.

This Special Issue, “Biodegradable Materials for Drug Delivery”, covers the different classes of biodegradable materials used for drug delivery approaches, such as natural and synthetic polymers, or inorganic materials, such as ceramics and metals. It highlights established delivery systems like hydrogels, supramolecular structures, nanoparticles or lipid-based carriers, describes the variety of applied dosage forms in this context like capsules, patches, or solutions, and addresses the aspect of biocompatibility of these materials, i.e., their impact on livings cells and tissues. Furthermore, the drug release from these materials, triggered by different stimuli, as well as promising smart delivery concepts are explained. Finally, the actual degradation process caused by stimuli like pH-shift, enzymes, temperature, or combinations thereof will be discussed.

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Journal of Functional Biomaterials is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Natural polymers
• Synthetic polymers
• Biodegradable inorganic materials
• Composite and hybrid materials
• Hydrogels
• Supramolecular structures and nanoparticles
• Lipids
• Dosage forms of biodegradable drug delivery systems
• Biocompatibility - interaction with cells and tissues
• Stimuli responsive drug release
• Smart drug delivery
• Stimuli responsive degradation