ABSTRACT
The combination of liposomes and scaffolds can afford unprecedented functional and safety enhancements to the delivery of drugs, protein therapeutics, or genes. For instance, local delivery of liposome-encapsulated biomolecules can maintain appropriate drug levels at a healing site, thereby reducing adverse side effects associated with continued bolus administration. Although liposomes have been extensively demonstrated to be attractive carriers for therapeutically active agents, they suffer from drawbacks, which have significantly limited their widespread use. The most attractive and, so far, therapeutically promising, feature of combining tissue-engineered scaffolds with liposomes for enhanced delivery of bioactive molecules is the ability to control delivery in a sustained and targeted manner. Incorporating liposomes inside polymeric matrices generates functionally diverse two-component systems that enhance therapeutic cargo delivery. For pharmaceutical delivery, the ability of incorporating liposomes within hydrogels enables the entrapment and delivery of hydrophobic drugs. Coating liposomes with chitosan has been one strategy used to improve the performance of liposome-based drug delivery systems.
