The development of natural phospholipids for nanostructured drug delivery systems has attracted much attention in the past decades. Lecithin that was derived from naturally occurring in soybeans (SL) has introduced some auspicious accomplishments to the drug carrying aspect, like effectual encapsulation, controlled release, and successful delivery of the curative factors to intracellular regions in which they procure these properties from their flexible physicochemical and biophysical properties, such as large aqueous center and biocompatible lipid, self-assembly, tunable properties, and high loading capacity. Despite the almost perfect properties as a drug carrier, liposome is known to be quite quickly eliminated from the body systems. The surface modification of liposomes has been investigated in many studies to overcome this drawback. In this review, we intensively discussed the surface-modified liposomes that enhancing the targeting, cellular uptake, and therapeutic response. Moreover, the recent applications of soy lecithin-derived liposome, focusing on cancer treatment, brain targeting, and vaccinology, are also summarized.

Despite the fact that nanocarriers as drug delivery systems overcome the limitation of chemotherapy, the leakage of encapsulated drugs during the delivery process to the target site can still cause toxic effects to healthy cells in other tissues and organs in the body. Controlling drug release at the target site, responding to stimuli that originated from internal changes within the body, as well as stimuli manipulated by external sources has recently received significant attention. Owning to the spherical shape and porous structure, dendrimer is utilized as a material for drug delivery. Moreover, the surface region of dendrimer has various moieties facilitating the surface functionalization to develop the desired material. Therefore, multi-stimuli-responsive dendrimers or ‘smart’ dendrimers that respond to more than two stimuli will be an inspired attempt to achieve the site-specific release and reduce as much as possible the side effects of the drug. The aim of this review was to delve much deeper into the recent progress of multi-stimuli-responsive dendrimers in the delivery of anticancer drugs in addition to the major potential challenges.

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Soy lecithin liposomes (SLP) were prepared and partially surface modified with methoxy polyethylene glycol‐cholesterol conjugate (mPEG‐Chol) to improve its poorly‐soluble‐water‐anticancer‐drugs delivery efficiency. Paclitaxel (PTX) was used as the model drug and the PTX/SLP@mPEG was successfully developed with the optimal mass ratio of mPEG‐Chol determined at 4% in the SLP@mPEG formulation. The optimal SLP@mPEG formulation had a particle size range of 161.80 ± 1.51 nm and a negative surface charge of −54.30 ± 1.40 mV. Besides, a sustained drug release profile of 72 h and an encapsulation efficiency of 87.48 ± 0.70% was recorded. Moreover, in vitro cytotoxicity assays demonstrated that SLP@mPEG is nontoxic and cytocompatible. Overall, these obtained results provide insights into the potential of SLP@mPEG as a platform for the development of more effective therapies against cancers.