Polysaccharides as nanomaterials for therapeutics

The use of polysaccharides as building blocks in the development of nano-size drug delivery systems is rapidly growing. This can be attributed to the outstanding virtues of polysaccharides such as biocompatibility, biodegradability, low toxicity, and low cost. In addition, the variety of physicochemical properties and the ease of chemical modifications enable the preparation of a wide array of nanoparticles. This chapter describes the properties of common polysaccharides and the main mechanisms for polysaccharide-based nanoparticle preparation and provides examples from the conceptual design toward pre-clinical and clinical applications.