How Vitamin C Can Be Paired with Drugs, Peptides, and Proteins to Improve Targeted Therapy

This is a comprehensive review article that synthesizes findings from multiple published studies on vitamin C conjugation strategies. The authors examined research across several conjugation categories: small-molecule drugs, polymers, lipids, peptides, natural compounds, proteins, and nanostructures such as gold nanoparticles.

Drug delivery remains one of the biggest challenges in medicine — many promising therapies fail because they can't reach their targets effectively. This review highlights how a simple, naturally occurring nutrient (vitamin C) can be used as a molecular 'ticket' to smuggle drugs past biological barriers. The peptide conjugation angle is especially relevant for developing next-generation cosmeceuticals and targeted dermatological treatments.

Vitamin C conjugation sits at the intersection of nutritional biochemistry and drug delivery science. As targeted therapies and precision medicine advance, the need for smarter delivery systems grows. This approach joins other nutrient-based delivery strategies (like folate and biotin conjugation) in exploiting the body's own nutrient uptake machinery, with peptide conjugates representing a particularly promising frontier for combining targeting specificity with antioxidant protection.

As a review article, this study does not present new experimental data. The effectiveness of many described conjugates has only been demonstrated in laboratory settings, and clinical translation remains limited. The review may also be subject to selection bias in the studies it chose to highlight, and long-term safety data for most vitamin C conjugates is not discussed.