Our bodies have evolved formidable barriers to protect themselves against foreign substances—from our skin, to our cells and every component within the cells, each part of our bodies has protective layers. These defenses, while essential, pose a significant challenge for pharmaceutical drugs and therapies, such as vaccines, that have to bypass multiple barriers to reach their targets.
Although these barriers are vitally important in pharmaceutical science and drug design, much is still unknown about them and how to overcome them.
In a recent study, researchers from Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University and Nanjing University in China, and Western Washington and Emory University in the U.S., shed some light on why the delivery of therapeutics to cells can be so difficult.