Characterization of Drug Delivery Systems by Transmission Electron Microscopy

The contribution of electron microscopy, and here, in particular transmission electron microscopy (TEM), to the formulation and understanding of the biological action of drug delivery systems has led to a better insight into the design principles of drug delivery systems. TEM can be applied for particle characterization, for the visualization of the uptake and intracellular pathways of drug vehicles in cells and tissues and more recently can be also applied for the high-resolution investigation of drug–receptor interactions with near-atomic resolution. This chapter introduces basic techniques to optimize imaging quality of soft matter samples, highlights possibilities to study certain aspects of drug delivery applications, and finally provides a short introduction to high-resolution characterization possibilities which recently emerged.