RNA interference (RNAi) has just made it through the pipeline to clinical trials. However, in order for RNAi to serve as an ideal personalized therapeutics and be clinically approved-safe, specific, and potent strategies must be devised for efficient delivery of RNAi payloads to specific cell types, which despite the immense potential, remains a challenge. Through evaluating the recent reported...

Clinical trials of nanotechnology medical products present complex risk management challenges that involve many uncertainties and important risk-risk trade-offs. This paper inquires whether the precautionary principle can help to inform risk management approaches to nanomedicine clinical trials. It concludes that prudent precaution may be appropriate for ensuring the safety of such trials, but ...

Nanotechnology has made a major impact on industry, leading to, for example, batteries that store more energy and solar cell coatings that absorb more light. In theory, scientists can also engineer nanoparticles that carry drug payloads, avoid healthy tissue, and seek out tumors. “The concept is really beautiful: A drug loaded into a nanoparticle will destroy the tumor with no side effects,” sa...

Nanomedicine is an emerging field that applies concepts in nanotechnology to develop novel diagnostics and therapies. Physical and chemical properties of particles, including size, shape, modulus, surface charge and surface chemistry, play an important role in determining particle-cell interactions, cellular trafficking mechanisms, biodistribution, and pharmacokinetics. This discussion focuses ...

Cells respond to their structural surrounding and within nanostructures exhibit unique proliferative and differentiation properties. The application of nanotechnologies to the field of regenerative medicine offers the potential to direct cell fate, target the delivery of cells and reduce immune rejection (via encapsulation), thereby supporting the development of regenerative medicines. The over...

Marriage of cell biology (the concept of 'lysosomotropic drug delivery') and the realization that water-soluble synthetic polymers might provide an ideal platform for targeted drug delivery led to the first synthetic polymer-drug conjugates that entered clinical trials as anticancer agents. Conceptually, polymer conjugates share many features with other macromolecular drugs, but they have the a...

CONTEXT Over the last few decades, extensive efforts have been made worldwide to develop nanomedicine delivery systems, especially via oral route for antidiabetic drugs. Absorption of insulin is hindered by epithelial cells of gastrointestinal tract, acidic gastric pH and digestive enzymes. EVIDENCE ACQUISITION Recent reports have identified and explained the beneficial role of several struct...

Nanoparticle-based delivery systems provide new opportunities to overcome the limitations associated with traditional small-molecule drug therapy for cancer and to achieve both therapeutic and diagnostic functions in the same platform. Preclinical trials are generally designed to assess therapeutic potential and not to optimize the design of the delivery platform. Consequently, progress in deve...