Skin-specific drug delivery: a rapid solution to skin diseases?

In this issue of The Journal of Investigative Dermatology, Kouno et al. achieve skin-specific drug delivery using an antibody to deliver substances in a highly specific manner to nontransformed cells. They make use of a nonpathogenic anti-desmoglein 3 autoantibody that had been derived from a patient with pemphigus vulgaris to deliver drugs to the surface of keratinocytes. This approach may turn out to be a new "magic bullet", thereby revolutionizing the therapy of skin disease. The authors then used a conjugate of this antibody with a new drug entity, TNF-related apoptosis-inducing ligand, to demonstrate, as a proof-of-principle, that their approach has the potential to facilitate the treatment of both cancerous and inflammatory skin diseases.