Biological Barriers in Health and Disease
A special issue of Pharmaceutics (ISSN 1999-4923). This special issue belongs to the section "Drug Delivery and Controlled Release".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2021) | Viewed by 109903
Special Issue Editors
Interests: Biological barriers in health and disease—most work on the blood–brain barrier, kidney and lung epithelia. Development of in vitro models under static and dynamic flow systems; comprehensive characterization of barrier models with regard to the paracellular, transport and metabolic barrier; disease models with a focus on qualification and cross-validation of in vivo models (e.g., stroke, traumatic brain injury, Alzheimer’s disease and chronic inflammation), application for drug transport and elucidation of transport mechanisms, disease models and investigation of underlying mechanisms, cross-talk between barrier-forming cells and their microenvironment, influence of shear stress, application of disease models for the development of therapeutic strategies and their evaluation in accordance with in vivo models; development of biological barriers; species differences of biological barriers; blood–saliva barrier including epithelia of oral mucosa and salivary glands
Interests: transport proteins in physiological barriers being relevant for drug transport; ABC-transporter signaling; development of colloidal carriers, such as surface decorated liposomes and nanoparticles to improve CNS drug delivery
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: blood-brain barrier; blood-brain barrier dysfunction; brain endothelial protection; targeted drug delivery; targeted nanoparticle; BBB transporters; BBB transcytosis; organ-on-chip models
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Biological barriers protect organs and tissues from physical, chemical and biological damage and maintain homeostasis within the tissues. In this context, they also represent important interfaces between organs and their "outside world", such as air or body fluids (e.g., blood and saliva). The main components of biological barriers are either endothelial or epithelial cell layers. The function of these cell layers is highly regulated by their microenvironment, which includes neighboring cell types and the extracellular matrix or physical stimuli such as shear stress exerted by blood flow. It is known that the functionality of biological barriers is altered in many diseases. These functional changes affect the paracellular barrier, active transport of molecules, the metabolic barrier, but also the signaling between the body fluid and the tissue, and the clearance of waste from the tissues. It is assumed that changes in biological barriers are not only symptoms but also causally related to disease progression. In addition, biological barriers can be direct targets for therapeutic approaches. They also determine the permeability of biomarkers from the tissue into the body fluid but can also release biomarkers themselves.
This Special Issue serves to highlight the role of biological barriers in health and disease with a focus on in silico, in vitro and in vivo animal and human data, contributing to the translation from the animal to human situation. We accept all articles related to biological barriers including in vitro model development with a focus on multicellular and microfluidic systems, pathogen-host interactions, drug permeability, drug actions, therapeutic strategy evaluations, drug delivery systems, novel disease models, signaling pathways and omics data.
Dr. Winfried Neuhaus
Prof. Dr. Gert Fricker
Dr. Mária A. Deli
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- drug transport
- transport protein regulation
- blood–brain barrier
- epithelial barriers
- gut barrier
- respiratory barriers
- blood–saliva barrier
- cell culture, organoid and chip models
- biological barriers and pathological changes
- protection of biological barriers in diseases
- targeted drug delivery systems and nanoparticles to cross barriers
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