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Published in Valerio Voliani, Nanomaterials and Neoplasms, 2021
Kim M. Tsoi, Sonya A. Macparland, Xue-Zhong Ma, Vinzent N. Spetzler, Juan Echeverri, Ben Ouyang, Saleh M. Fadel, Edward A. Sykes, Nicolas Goldaracena, Johann M. Kaths, John B. Conneely, Benjamin A. Alman, Markus Selzner, Mario A. Ostrowski, Oyedele A. Adeyi, Anton Zilman, Ian D. Mcgilvray, Warren C. W. Chan
The concept of the “magic bullet” popularized by Paul Ehrlich describes the design of therapeutic agents that selectively attack pathogens and diseased tissue but leave healthy cells untouched. This idea has inspired the fields of nanotechnology and bioengineering, leading to huge investments in the development of agents to more efficiently diagnose and treat human diseases, such as cancer1, diabetes2 and atherosclerosis3. Researchers have produced nanoscale materials with unique optical, physical and electrical properties that can encapsulate drugs and/or contrast agents and be coated with homing ligands. In vitro studies have shown that nanomaterials are capable of killing and/or imaging cells4-7. However, this success has not carried over to human use, largely due to a delivery problem. In vivo, the majority of the injected dose is cleared from the bloodstream by cells of the mononuclear phagocyte system (MPS) and most nanomaterials never reach their intended site8. The MPS is a network of immune and architectural cells, located in organs such as the liver, spleen and bone marrow, which remove foreign material from the bloodstream. Biodistribution studies have shown this to be the case for all types of nanomaterials-micelles9,10, quantum dots11,12, gold nanoparticles13,14, and carbon nanotubes15,16. Accumulation in the MPS is the single biggest hurdle to the clinical translation of nanotechnology because it impedes delivery of a sufficient nanomaterial dose to the disease site and can raise toxicity concerns. Nano-researchers often treat the MPS as a “blackbox,” which has led to a poor understanding of the nanomaterial-MPS interaction and a lack of effective solutions.
Controlled Drug Delivery in Photodynamic Therapy and Fluorescence-Based Diagnosis of Cancer
Published in Mary-Ann Mycek, Brian W. Pogue, Handbook of Biomedical Fluorescence, 2003
As can be seen from Table 2, potential sites for active targeting of neoplastic tissue can be structural membrane proteins, receptors, glycoproteins, or lipoproteins associated with abnormal cell growth. Following the concept of “magic bullets,” coined by the German bacteriologist Paul Ehrlich [8], such active targeting moieties include antibodies, antibody fragments, growth factor and hormone receptor ligands (proteins, peptides, and small synthetic organic molecules), and nutrient transporters.
Limitations of risk approaches
Published in Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems, 2019
What can be done? There is no magic bullet. However, underlying this paper is a belief that a disciplined systems-based approach is more appropriate than linear/causal thinking. Patterns are more important than chains. Finally, given that perhaps the most serious problem with risk is its inevitable incompleteness, a change of direction from risk to resilience could give a sounder framework. Resilience is discussed in a companion paper elsewhere in this journal (Elms, McCahon, and Dewhirst 2019).