- Nanotechnology, the engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale, is the powerful and potential tool with vast applications in medicine, electronics, biomaterials and energy production. In recent years, biomedical research based on nanotechnology has been performed resulting in significantly enhanced efficacy in both diagnostics and therapeutics.
- In the field of nanomedicine, nanooncology refers to applications of nanotechnology in cancer detection, diagnosis, management and therapy.
One of the major applications of nanotechnology in cancer therapeutics is drug delivery. The effectiveness of an anticancer drug is not only determined by the drug itself but also the ability of drug delivery to cancer tissue. The significances of effective drug delivery in cancer take into account of the optimal therapeutic effect of drugs and considerable cutback of toxic side effects. Typically, the full therapeutic effect of drugs in cancer is limited by drug resistance due to noncellular mechanisms impeding drug diffusion across the cell membrane and cellular mechanisms referring to biochemical and metabolic changes inside cancer cells, and intracellular and extracellular transport mechanisms. Moreover, lack of specificity of chemotherapeutic drugs results in systemic toxicity causing significant damage to normal tissues and lower concentrations of drug delivered to the tumor [Thakor]. Currently, novel pharmaceutical formulations have been developed and utilized to design efficient drug delivery systems in which the drug is distributed to the tumor at higher concentrations with its minimal exposure to noncancerous tissues. Approximately 150 drugs in development for cancer are based on nanotechnology [Jain_Handbook]. Fundamentally...
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...s have capability to target specific tumor cells based on the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect of tumors and nanoparticle surface modifications. The EPR effect refers to the passive drug delivery in which more blood supply to tumor tissues upon their abnormal architecture in the process of angiogenesis, and lack of lymphatic drainage conduct an increased drug delivery and accumulation in the tumor mass in comparison with normal tissues. Detailed explanations of EPR effect can be found in [Wiki, Thako]. However, the EPR effect is limited by the tumor blood flow heterogeneity and the impediment of noncellular mechanisms on drug diffusion across the cell membrane [Netti]. Alternatively, the active drug delivery referring to nanoparticle surface modifications has been developed in recent researches, providing an enhanced targeted drug delivery to tumors.
Over the years, surgery has made tremendous progress while changing human perspective; viewed as “no more science than butchery” a couple of centuries ago to now considered to be a solution for many health care problems threatening humans, like cancer, heart disease and kidney failure. Nevertheless, surgery has not been perfected to a level that provides successful results every time it is performed on patients. For example, surgery done to remove tumors in cancer patients result in only 45% of individuals to be cured. However, in order to be successful, the surgical procedure has to be carried out incredibly precisely and incomplete removal of tumors can decrease survival rate. Therefore, surgeons have to be able to recognize diseased tissue and distinguish it between healthy tissues. But even with the use of radioactive tracers and visuals, surgeons are not able to identify the exact site of the unhealthy tissue and its boundaries. Thus, almost 40% of the time cancerous cells are left behind because even the best qualified surgeons are not successful at the nanotechnological scale of tissue.
For 8 weeks of vacation work I have been looking at preparing and characterizing nanoparticulate systems to encapsulate the antimicrobial drug mupirocin. Specifically polymeric nanoparticles and liposomes were investigated.
In this case study, our concern goes for the chitosan nanoparticles; firstly nanoparticles are able to adsorb and/or encapsulate a drug, thus protecting it against chemical and enzymatic degradation. Furthermore the encapsulated drug may be prevented from crystallization, thus forming a solid solution. Depending on drug solubility in the carrier, a drug load varying from only a few percent up to 50%] Secondly, chitosan is ...
Nanotechnology is special because it can ensure that the other healthy body cells won't be affected by the
The main target of this research are two main groups, the spectators and the athletes. These are two important stakeholders being affected by decisions related to nanotechnology’s use in sports. The fans and spectators of sports were reached through an online survey. By posting the survey on multiple websites and forums I was able to reach out to different people in different countries and get a representative opinion about the given issue. The athletes on the other hand were approached through a focus group and one-on-one interviews. The opinion of these two groups is important to address the gap mentioned above since an agreement must be reached to what extent nanotechnology should be allowed or not. Moreover, this research will focus on Egyptian athletes and fans because Egypt is a developing country and one of the aims of this research is to try to see if developing countries will be able to benefit from nanotechnology in sports rather than developed countries.
Wang, K., Wu, X., & Huang, J. (2013, February 28). Cancer stem cell theory: therapeutic implications for nanomedicine. Retrieved December 12, 2013, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3589204/
...nessing “the power of nanotechnology” to radically change the way we diagnose, treat, and prevent cancer.” The most likely method implemented will by the use of nanovectors for targeted delivery of anticancer drugs, and then heating nanoparticles that are attached to cancer cells so that the cancer cells explode. (5, 9) There are still many obstacles that must be overcome before this is a reality: from the ethical concern by some that nanobots will take control of the body to the more practical problem that this method of treatment will be very expensive and funding will be an issue. (6) But with millions of people suffering from some form of cancer, scientists are searching for cures and treatments and nanotechnology offers the greatest promise. One day, cancer may be completely curable thanks to nanotechnology which is something everyone would benefit from.
Gold has long been used within the human body for many surgical treatments. Due to the chemical nature of gold, it does not readily react with other compounds inside the human body and is not damaging to the surrounding cells. Furthermore, it will not corrode or break down because it does not interact with oxygen. This allows scientists to implant gold nanoparticles within cancerous cells in preparation for treatment. After injecting the nanoparticles, which are smaller than a red blood cell, they begin to accumulate within the rapidly-growing cancer cell, where they wait until further treatment.
The most common type of radiation therapy that is used involves exposure of patients to external radiations. In this method, a beam containing high-energy X-rays is directed to a specific region of the body to irradiate the main tumors. However, the problem with this technique is that the ability to hit normal tissues of adjacent organs (Noda et al., 2009). Different from this, targeted radionuclide therapy functions like chemotherapy. A radionuclide labeled molecule is administered either orally or intravenously such that it delivers radiations that are sufficiently toxic to the site of the disease to kill the target cells (Bolus & Brady, 2011). However, the main difference with chemotherapy is that the drugs or toxins only...
Bioengineering analysis is pointing a new way to better drug designs and better drug testing. The disease of cancer has taken the life of many patients, but through new medicines and procedures many more are surviving. A significant progress has been made against cancer, allowing people to live longer and fuller lives. There have been more than one-million less cancer deaths since 1990and 1991(aacr.org). On January 1, 2012 there were 13.7 million survivors in the United States. These numbers are achieved by using new techniques to cure cancer like, immunotherapies to avoid toxins, Targeted cancer therapies to target different types of cancer, and weakling cancerous tumors making them susceptible to drugs. Cancer is still a significant problem and is far from being cured, but step by step biomedical engineers are getting closer and closer.
The main purpose of green nanotechnology has been to develop clean technologies that would minimize potential human and environmental health risk. Also, to encourage replacement of existing products with the clean technologies that is more environmentally friendly. There are many benefits of using green nanotechnologies as the new solution for energy in both their current availability and their current development. Over the new few decades, the highest growth opportunities will come from application of nanomaterials for making better use of existing resources. Nanotechnologies will help reduce weight of carbon emission in transportation utilizing nanocomposite materials that quickly diffuses across the automotive and aerospace industries. Applications of nanotechnologies will result in a global annual savings of 8000 tons of carbon dioxide, which will rise even further to over millions tons by 2020. But, let’s focus on the positive effects of Green Nanotechnology in Solar.
Nanotechnology is science, technology and engineering that is conducted at the nanoscale. The nanoscale is about 1 to 100 nanometres.
Nanotechnology includes nanorobots which are so small that they can be injected into the human bloodstream after which the nanorobots can do investigations or repair at cellular level. Nanorobots could optimize the delivery of pharmaceutical products, these means that medicines which are targeted on a specific type of cells can be delivered to only those cells by the nanorobots. The robots can attach to the cells after which they can inject the drug into the target cells. This could be a great breakthrough for cancer treatments such as chemotherapy because there is a minimal chance of injecting healthy cells with the drug and therefor negative side effects can be avoided.
The particle size distribution of the solid particles in nanosuspensions is usually less than one micron with an average particle size ranging between 200 and 600 nm . Nanosuspension is efficient for the delivery of hydrophobic drugs , which is applied to poorly soluble drugs that are insoluble in both oils and water . Furthermore , homogenization and wet milling are the methods for the preparation of nanosuspensions .Other technique involves the spraying of a drug solution in a volatile organic solvent into a heated aqueous solution. The nanosuspension approach has been employed for drugs including tarazepide, atovaquone, amphotericin B, paclitaxel and bupravaquone. Basically , lyophilisation or spray drying can be implemented to dry the nanosuspensions
The most interesting part of this career is developing nanotechnology. They may cure diseases or slow the aging progress. Most nano-devices are as small as 100 nanometers across so, they are built on the atomic scale. If put into the human body and designed pro...