Regarding the development of stimuli-responsive microgels as drug delivery systems for cancer therapies, improvements in biocompatibility, stability, and controlled release are the major challenges due to the generally limited dosages of anticancer drugs capable of being loaded, poor drug bioavailability, and non-specialized drug administration. To overcome those challenges, this Thesis presents various pH-sensitive biopolymer-based microgel systems which exhibit good biocompatibility and

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... radability (whilst producing non-toxic degradation by-products), thus demonstrating the great potential for the incorporation of various active agents including drugs and biologics. Based on these properties, microgels can be utilized as drug delivery vehicles for stimulus-triggered degradation and controlled drug delivery, thus suggesting that the presented microgel systems are good candidates for site-specific cancer therapies. This Thesis focuses on conductive polymer-based, as well as biopolymer-based microgels, for use in drug delivery systems. Chapter 1 provides an overview of different functional microgels. These microgels exhibit good biocompatibility, biodegradability, non-toxicity, pH-sensitivity, redox-activity, and adjustable chemical and mechanical properties. These properties endow them with a wide variety of applications, such as drug encapsulation, which facilitates their use as delivery systems, electrical sensors, and functional coatings, as well as their application in areas such as tissue regeneration and wastewater filtration. Chapter 2 introduces a controlled drug release system: drug-loaded biopolymer-based microgels. Due to the present problems faced with its use, such as insufficient cellular uptake as well as the numerous drug resistance mechanisms in cells, an anticancer drug, doxorubicin (DOX), has been developed to be capable of being encapsulated into nanocarriers. Moreover, this drug can also be released under the control of the microenvironment, most notably in tumor tissues. The Thesis deta [...]