Low-molecular-weight gelators as base materials for ointments

Abstract

Ointments have been widely used as an efficient means of transdermal drug application for centuries. In order to create ointments suitable for various new medicinal drugs, the creation of ointment base materials, such as gels, has attracted much research attention in this decade. On the other hand, the chemical tuning of low-molecular-weight gelators (LMWGs) has been increasingly studied for two decades because LMWGs can be tailored for different purposes by molecular design and modification. In this review, several series of studies related to the creation of ointment base materials with enhanced properties using existing and newly-created LMWGs are summarized.