Peptide-mediated transdermal drug delivery

The skin offers an attractive interface for systemic delivery of drugs. Several physical and chemical approaches have been developed to overcome the natural transport barrier of the skin for therapeutically effective transdermal drug delivery. This chapter focuses on the use of peptides as novel transdermal drug delivery agents. Peptides offer several advantages over traditional methods in delivering drugs due to the ease of design and use, chemical diversity, and potentially low toxicity and immunogenicity. We discuss the potential of both the cell-penetrating and membrane-penetrating peptides in delivering a wide variety of cargoes ranging from proteins and peptide therapeutics, nanoparticles, and nucleotides across the skin. Although significant progress is evident, several challenges still remain. These are briefly discussed.