Peptide Nanostructured Materials as Drug Delivery Carriers

Peptides are ideal building blocks for biomaterials and nanostructures aimed at advanced drug delivery, with hydrogels playing an elected role for their ability to mimic natural soft tissues and provide a matrix for the sustained release of therapeutic cargo. In this chapter, we discuss the advantages and innovation potential of using peptide-based vehicles for drug delivery; we then describe recent examples in the literature where peptide nanostructures or hydrogels were designed for this type of application, using non-covalent or covalent approaches to load the therapeutics. Finally, we conclude with a perspective on the future of this exciting field that is moving towards life-like materials to address the unsolved challenges in clinical applications.