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The Merger of Nanotechnology and Medicine: A Little History
Published in Paula V. Messina, Luciano A. Benedini, Damián Placente, Tomorrow’s Healthcare by Nano-sized Approaches, 2020
Paula V. Messina, Luciano A. Benedini, Damián Placente
As stated before, nanotechnology has its roots in the physical science; however, it has always-important correlations with biology, both at the rhetorical and practical levels. At the beginning of the 20th century, Paul Ehrlich, the founder of chemotherapy, was the first to propose the concept of the “magic bullet” for the application of chemotherapy to treat cancer patients (Ehrlich 1908). By the end of the 1960s, Peter Paul Speiser developed the first nanoparticles which can be used for targeted drug therapy, and in the 1970s Georges Jean Franz Köhler and César Milstein succeeded in producing monoclonal antibodies (Milstein 1996). Since then there has been intensive research into the possible syntheses and uses of various nano-carrier systems and the physicochemical functionalization of their surface structure (Qiao et al. 2018). Cancer treatment based on targeted transport of active substances can moreover take advantage of the EPR (enhanced permeability and retention) effect described in 1986 by Yasuhiro Matsumura and Hiroshi Maeda. They defined a pathway to target nanoparticles and to deposit them into the tumours to a greater degree than in healthy tissue (Matsumura and Maeda 1986, Duncan and Seymour 2007).
Combinatorial Approach to Polymer Design for Nanomedicines
Published in Vladimir Torchilin, Handbook of Materials for Nanomedicine, 2020
Amit Singh, Meghana Rawal, Mansoor M. Amiji
Discovery of the “stealth” property imparted by polyethylene glycol (PEG) modification of the nanoparticles was one of the most revolutionary development that provided impetus and cemented the faith that nanoparticle research could change the central dogma of drug development [1]. PEG decoration of nanoparticle surface aids in their prolonged systemic circulation by evading mononuclear phagocytic system (MPS) and activation of the complement system. Due to the tremendous impact of improved circulation half-life on the beneficial pharmacological properties of the drug product, multiple other strategies have also been adopted to diversify the repertoire of the “stealth” property imparting molecules [2]. The prolonged half-life of the nanoparticles in circulation assists in their accumulation in cancer tumors by a phenomenon called as “enhanced permeability and retention effect (EPR),” more often described also as “passivetargeting” of nanoparticles [3]. Passive targeting by EPR effect, however, is limited to tumorous tissues that have leaky vasculature and poorly developed or completely dysfunctional lymphatic system [4]. Targeted drug delivery on the other hand aims at controlling the spatial distribution of the nanoparticle in the body by intentional use of affinity ligands specific to a cell or tissue. This approach is referred to as “active targeting” and is achieved by the use of specific ligands such as antibodies, peptides, sugars, or aptamer, among others [5].
Nanoparticles as Drug Delivery Systems for Cancer Treatment: Applications in Targeted Therapy and Personalized Medicine
Published in Hala Gali-Muhtasib, Racha Chouaib, Nanoparticle Drug Delivery Systems for Cancer Treatment, 2020
Racha Chouaib, Rana Sarieddine, Hala Gali-Muhtasib
Drug-loaded nanoparticles can target the tumor either passively or actively. Since highly aggressive tumors form fenestrated vasculature having deregulated and leaky nature with poor lymphatic drainage near the tumor sites, the nanoparticles are retained and accumulate near the tumor sites, thus decreasing their exposure to normal tissues and reducing side effects. This enhanced permeability and retention effect (EPR) results in passive drug targeting to the tumors which ensures an advantage for nanoparticle encapsulated drugs over free drugs [64, 65]. A more efficient way is the active targeting where a ligand is conjugated on the surface of the nanoparticles; this ligand binds specifically to the receptors or antigens on the cancer cell surface [66]. This approach enhances the specificity and thus the uptake and retention of the drug at the cancer site while decreasing systemic toxicity. Currently, the Food and Drug administration (FDA) has approved fifty types of nanoparticles for clinical use including liposomal nanoparticles, polymers, and nanocrystals, among others. About 60 nanoparticle types are classified as investigational drugs [67].
Self-crosslinked keratin nanoparticles for pH and GSH dual responsive drug carriers
Published in Journal of Biomaterials Science, Polymer Edition, 2020
Lijuan Wang, Jinsong Du, Xiao Han, Jie Dou, Jian Shen, Jiang Yuan
Cancer has threatened human health seriously for a long time. Nowadays, there are several methods to cure cancer such as surgical cutting, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. Chemotherapy is limited by the cytotoxicity and side effects associated with these conventional therapies [1]. Nanoparticle-based drug carriers have attracted widespread attention as drug delivery system (DDS) because they can take advantage of the physiological characteristics of tumors to achieve aggregation at the tumor sites through high permeability and enhanced permeability and retention effect (EPR) [2]. In addition, drug-loaded nanoparticles can easily enter tumor cells through endocytosis to effectively kill tumor cells due to their small sizes [3].
In vitro investigation of swelling triggered release of 5-fluorouracil from gelatin coated gold nanoparticles
Published in Inorganic and Nano-Metal Chemistry, 2022
Nishi Verma, Alka Tiwari, Neha Sonker, Jaya Bajpai, Anil Kumar Bajpai
In current years, nanotechnology has emerged as one of the rapidly developing fields in science and engineering disciplines. The results of fast development in this area are the discovery of the huge number of functional materials having dimension in the range of 1 to 100 nm.[1] The reason for using nanoparticles in therapeutic applications is their small size, which is comparable to many of the proteins and other macro-drugs.[2] Some of the most important examples of noble metal nanostructures are, such as, nanoparticles,[3] nanowires,[4] nanorods,[5] nanoarchitectonics,[6] and many others. Nanotechnology mainly provides tools to analyze nanoscale phenomena and manipulate nano-scale objects; it cannot be a universal methodology for material production. There exists, therefore, a need to construct or architecturally manipulate functional material systems from nano-sized units.[7,8] In nature, the facile development of functional systems and advanced materials, that is, “architectonics” has become a unique approach for the future development of nanotechnology and nano-materials.[9] The nanoarchitectonics concept is basically applicable to various materials and systems. This concept has been applied to a wide range of current research targets such as functional materials production, structural fabrications, catalysis, detection/sensing, energy production/storage, environmental problem, device, biological research, and biomedical usages.[10] Nanoparticles based drug delivery systems are invented to take advantage of the enhanced permeability and retention effect (EPR), which results from the leaky capillaries and the lack of functional lymphatic drainage in tumor tissue.[11]