Chemotherapy is commonly associated with limited effectiveness and unwanted side effects in normal cells and tissues, due to the lack of specificity of therapeutic agents to cancer cells when systemically administered. In brain tumors, the existence of both physiological barriers that protect tumor cells and complex resistance mechanisms to anticancer drugs are additional obstacles that hamper a successful course of chemotherapy, thus resulting in high treatment failure rates. Several potential surrogate therapies have been developed so far. In this context, hydrogel-based systems incorporating nanostructured drug delivery systems (DDS) and hydrogel nanoparticles, also denoted nanogels, have arisen as a more effective and safer strategy than conventional chemotherapeutic regimens. The former, as a local delivery approach, have the ability to confine the release of anticancer drugs near tumor cells over a long period of time, without compromising healthy cells and tissues. Yet, the latter may be systemically administered and provide both loading and targeting properties in their own framework, thus identifying and efficiently killing tumor cells. Overall, this review focuses on the application of hydrogel matrices containing nanostructured DDS and hydrogel nanoparticles as potential and promising strategies for the treatment and diagnosis of glioblastoma and other types of brain cancer. Some aspects pertaining to computational studies are finally addressed.

β-Caryophyllene (BCP) is a sesquiterpene that shows high potential in pharmacological applications. However, these have been drastically limited by the respective volatility and poor water solubility. The present study investigates the formation of inclusion complexes between BCP and methyl-β-cyclodextrin (MβCD) and shows that these complexes promote a significant improvement of the anti-inflammatory, gastric protection, and antioxidant activities relative to neat BCP. It is shown that the solubility of BCP is significantly increased through complexation in phase solubility studies. Inclusion complexes with MβCD in solid state were prepared by three different methods, kneading, rotary evaporation, and lyophilization, with the latter confirmed by differential scanning calorimetry, Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, ¹H NMR spectroscopy, and molecular dynamics studies. This study provides for the first time a full characterization of inclusion complexes between BCP and MβCD and highlights the impact of complex formation upon pharmacological activity.

Purpose: To use high-speed differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) in the identification of transitions in human stratum corneum (SC). Several scanning rates (100°C/min to 400°C/min) are used. Results: Eight transitions from 0 to 120°C are detected in a significant number of samples. Most of these transitions have already been identified in previous studies, but have been labeled considering essentially that only four are present. Results also indicate some degree of reversibility for transitions occurring at temperatures above 90°C. Dehydrated SC samples displayed slightly more defined transition peaks and a less frequent presence of the transitions below 50°C. In turn, the delipidised SC matrix showed two major endothermic signals, centered around 55 and 100°C, in conjunction with other much less marked features. Conclusions: The interpretation of DSC traces in terms of four main transition temperatures must be complemented having in mind the occurrence of other transitions, some of them at physiological temperatures. This work further suggests that transitions at temperatures above 90°C may to a large degree be associated to lipids, while transition at approx. 55°C is probably related to lipids covalently linked to proteins, as previously suggested.