Anti-infective Drug Nanosystems

Worldwide, infectious diseases caused by virus, bacteria, fungi and parasites are becoming a major health issue. Several serious infectious diseases such as AIDS, tuberculosis and leishmaniasis are caused by intracellular pathogens. Life-threatening infections such as systemic candidiasis are caused by extracellular fungi. Sight-threating ocular diseases such as microbial keratitis are caused by either bacteria or fungi or both. Over the last decade, several nanocarrier systems have shown to be a promising tool for delivering drugs to kill intracellular and extracellular pathogens at the infection site. There are many clinically used nanomedicines for the treatment of infectious diseases such as AmBisome®. Several pre-clinical nano-delivery systems such as lipid nanoparticles, liposomes, polymeric nanoparticles, dendrimers and nanotubes have been extensively investigated for the delivery of anti-infective drugs. In this chapter, a description of these delivery systems, examples of infectious diseases and the rationale for using these delivery systems to treat certain infections will be discussed.