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Imagine a material so small it measures just one-billionth of a meter. Then visualize that same material being fed into the human body. Welcome to the incredible world of nanomedicine.
The extraordinary advances made in the medical application of nanotechnology have seen nanomedicine used as a key application in disease diagnosis, drug delivery, and treatment. In particular, nanomedicine has gained a crucial role in cancer treatment.
In fact, nanomedicine has been hailed as one of the most important sciences of the 21st century. But what exactly are the fundamentals behind its use, and how is it administered?
Click through and learn more about the current research trends of nanomedicines.
Nanotechnology is the branch of technology that deals with dimensions and tolerances of less than 100 nanometers. In other words, 100 millionth of a millimeter or less, or one-billionth of a meter.
To put this unimaginable scale into perspective, a strand of human DNA is 2.5 nanometers in diameter. A sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick.
While the concept of nanotechnology was introduced in 1959, nanomedicine was first developed as a modern emerging science only in the early 1990s.
Today a key science of the 21st century, the principal objective of this variant of nanotechnology is to obtain cures for diseases from inside the body and at cellular or molecular level.
Nanomedicine offers key applications in disease diagnosis, drug delivery, and treatment.
It also spans other areas, including vaccine development, antibacterial diagnosis and imaging tools, wearable devices, implants, and high-throughput screening platforms.
Development trends of nanomedicines intended for therapeutic or diagnostic applications are rapidly evolving. So, in the medical field, where is nanomedicine typically applied?
In oncology, nanomaterials have been widely used in enhancing radio therapy due to their unique physical and chemical properties.
To elaborate, nanomedicine provides a potent strategy to induce the destruction of cancer cells, including those resistant to traditional therapies, by directly targeting the cellular and molecular pathways controlling cell death.
Similarly, nanomedicine is revolutionizing cancer immunotherapy by overcoming biological barriers through targeted antigen delivery. An antigen is a toxin or other foreign substance that induces an immune response in the body, especially the production of antibodies.
Nanotechnology has been applied in nucleic acid therapies, treatments that work inside cells to affect gene expression—the genetic blueprint of disease— to ultimately change protein expression and potentially alter the course of disease.
Nanomedicines are used for the postoperative management of pain. Nanoparticle drug carriers applied in small analgesic doses exhibit improved efficacy and provide longer-term relief of pain symptoms.
Photothermal therapy is a method to kill cancer cells using electromagnetic radiation. It's a promising therapeutic technique that utilizes photothermal materials, such as organic dyes or nanoparticles, to convert light energy into heat. This heat can selectively destroy cancer cells.
Theranostics combines radionuclide imaging and radiation therapy to find cancer cells anywhere in the body and deliver targeted radiation to kill those cells. To assist the target and delivery process, theranostic nanoparticles are loaded with therapeutic agents, for example anti-cancer drugs.
The utilization of nanoparticles in clinical settings for the purposes of cancer and other disease diagnosis and treatment includes the use of nanorobots.
A revolutionary tool in the fight against disease, nanorobots are tiny machines that carry out a very specific function and are just 50–100 nanometers wide.
Many nanobots are made from a combination of organic and non-organic materials. Porous silicone and oxygen are two common materials used, due to their properties.
Nanorobots respond to ultraviolet light, electric fields, and, more recently, to near-infrared wavelengths, which allow surgeons to control them.
In addition, these miniscule technological marvels can be directed through the bloodstream using bacteria attached to their surfaces.
Nanorobots are flexible and durable. Their surfaces carry various components with specific functions for drug delivery.
In fighting cancer, nanorobots are structured to contain a hidden weapon—so-called death receptors. These only become activated in an environment found in and around a solid tumor, thus sparing healthy cells.
Nanomedicine is enhancing blood tests by kick-starting the development of highly sensitive and specific nanodevices and biosensors for early and accurate disease detection. This is achieved by analyzing biomarkers in blood samples.
During the pandemic, lipid nanoparticles were used as drug delivery vehicles for the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNtech and Moderna.
Nanostructures are used in various fields, including nanomedicine. Examples of their application include a carbon nanotube, which can be used as a scaffold to grow bone cells.
Scientists are also developing nanostructures that may one day allow surgeons to harvest human organs without the need of a transplant.
In the first instance, this process would require the creation of a biodegradable mold to support the development of an organ, a kidney for example. Once the vessels system had been properly developed, the mold would disappear.
In the near future nanotechnology, and by extension nanomedicine, may allow us all to receive individualized therapeutic treatments.
In fact the emergence of numerous nanomedicines has demonstrated their potential in both disease diagnosis and treatment to the point where they are likely to take the place of conventional diagnosis and therapeutic approaches.
Meanwhile, scientists and healthcare professionals continue the research and development of this exciting and groundbreaking medical application of nanotechnology.
Sources (ScienceDirect) (Forbes) (AZoNano) (National Institutes of Health) (Nature) (Karolinska Institutet) (National Nanotechnology Initiative)
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Imagine a material so small it measures just one-billionth of a meter. Then visualize that same material being fed into the human body. Welcome to the incredible world of nanomedicine.
The extraordinary advances made in the medical application of nanotechnology have seen nanomedicine used as a key application in disease diagnosis, drug delivery, and treatment. In particular, nanomedicine has gained a crucial role in cancer treatment.
In fact, nanomedicine has been hailed as one of the most important sciences of the 21st century. But what exactly are the fundamentals behind its use, and how is it administered?
Click through and learn more about the current research trends of nanomedicines.