On target

Targeted drug delivery has been recognised as a novel approach for delivering medication to specific organs without the need to increase the concentration of the medication (1). In traditional drug delivery systems, such as oral ingestion or intravascular injection, the medication is distributed throughout the body through systemic blood circulation. Consequently, only a small portion of the medication reaches the target organ. However, the ability to increase the concentration of the dose is limited by peripheral toxicity related to the systemic administration of compounds. In contrast, targeted drug delivery is able to concentrate the medication in the tissues of interest without increasing the relative concentration of the medication in the remaining tissues, thus reducing side effects. Targeted drug delivery can be used to treat many diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and cancerous tumours (2). Synthetic targeted drug delivery vehicles, including antibodies, peptides, proteins and vitamins, can enhance the selective uptake of drugs by target tissues or cells (1). However, developing synthetic vehicles can be a cost- and time-intensive process. The ability to monitor the structures of these drug delivery vehicles during and after the manufacturing process could be vital to avoid dead-end development paths and wasted resources.