Temperature and pH dual-stimuli responsive polymeric carriers for drug delivery

Abstract Environment-responsive drug delivery systems have emerged as attractive alternative to traditional systems, delivering therapeutic agents on-demand to their target tissue. Temperature and pH arise as two of the most commonly utilized stimuli for triggering these responses. Among polymeric carriers, temperature and pH dual-responsive nanocarriers were developed to exhibit changes in drug-release rate or particle size upon change in environment’s pH and temperature. In this chapter, various design aspects of temperature- and pH-dual-responsive polymeric nanocarriers are discussed in details with examples, illustrating different responsive polymeric materials used in their fabrication. The interplay between temperature and pH responsiveness within the polymeric nanocarriers is discussed too.