Abstract
Nanotechnology offers many potential benefits to medical research by making pharmaceuticals more efficacious and by decreasing their adverse side-effects. Preclinical characterization of nanoparticles intended for medical applications is complicated – due to the variety of materials used, their unique surface properties and multifunctional nature. This chapter serves as an introduction to the volume, giving a broad overview of applications of nanotechnology to medicine, and describes some of the beneficial aspects of nanotechnology-based drug delivery. We define nanotechnology and provide brief descriptions of the major classes of nanomaterials used for medical applications. The following two chapters discuss scientific and regulatory hurdles involved in the use of nanotechnology in medicine. The remaining bulk of the volume provides the reader with protocols that have been tested against clinically relevant nanoparticles and describes some of the nuances of nanoparticle types and necessary controls.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Harris, J.M., Chess, R.B. (2003) Effect of pegylation on pharmaceuticals. Nat Rev Drug Discov 2, 214–21.
Fang, J., Sawa, T., Maeda, H. (2003) Factors and mechanism of “EPR” effect and the enhanced antitumor effects of macromolecular drugs including SMANCS. Adv Exp Med Biol 519, 29–49.
Maeda, H., Wu, J., Sawa, T., Matsumura, Y., Hori, K. (2000) Tumor vascular permeability and the EPR effect in macromolecular therapeutics: a review. J Control Release 65, 271–84.
Sahoo, S.K., Labhasetwar, V. (2003) Nanotech approaches to drug delivery and imaging. Drug Discov Today 8, 1112–20.
Ravi Kumar, M., Hellermann, G., Lockey, R.F., Mohapatra, S.S. (2004) Nanoparticle-mediated gene delivery: state of the art. Expert Opin Biol Ther 4, 1213–24.
Paciotti, G.F., Myer, L., Weinreich, D., Goia, D., Pavel, N., McLaughlin, R.E., Tamarkin, L. (2004) Colloidal gold: a novel nanoparticle vector for tumor directed drug delivery. Drug Deliv 11, 169–83.
Desai, N., Trieu, V., Yao, Z., Louie, L., Ci, S., Yang, A., Tao, C., De, T., Beals, B., Dykes, D., Noker, P., Yao, R., Labao, E., Hawkins, M., Soon-Shiong, P. (2006) Increased antitumor activity, intratumor paclitaxel concentrations, and endothelial cell transport of cremophor-free, albumin-bound paclitaxel, ABI-007, compared with cremophor-based paclitaxel. Clin Cancer Res 12, 1317–24.
Green, M.R., Manikhasm, G.M., Orlovm, S., Afanasyev, B., Makhson, A.M., Bhar, P., Hawkins, M.J. (2006) Abraxane, a novel Cremophor-free, albumin-bound particle form of paclitaxel for the treatment of advanced non-small-cell lung cancer. Ann Oncol 17, 1263–8.
Patri, A.K., Kukowska-Latallo, J.F., Baker, J.R. Jr. (2005) Targeted drug delivery with dendrimers: comparison of the release kinetics of covalently conjugated drug and non-covalent drug inclusion complex. Adv Drug Deliv Rev 57, 2203–14.
Huwyler, J., Wu, D., Pardridge, W.M. (1996) Brain drug delivery of small molecules using immunoliposomes. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 93, 14164–9.
Acknowledgments
This project has been funded in whole or in part by federal funds from the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, under contract N01-CO-12400. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Department of Health and Human Services, nor does the mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the US Government.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
McNeil, S.E. (2011). Unique Benefits of Nanotechnology to Drug Delivery and Diagnostics. In: McNeil, S. (eds) Characterization of Nanoparticles Intended for Drug Delivery. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 697. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-60327-198-1_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-60327-198-1_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Humana Press
Print ISBN: 978-1-60327-197-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-60327-198-1
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols