The Upcoming Era of Nanomedicine: A Briefing
Source: Drug Delivery Technology Magazine, April 2008

By: Bhupendra.G.Prajapati, MPharm; Jayvadan K. Patel, PhD; Vishnu M. Patel, PhD; and Krunal V. Prajapati

An increasingly diverse library of devices and technologies are used to aid drug targeting and delivery. The technologies include natural vectors (antibody and protein carriers, recombinant proteins, liposomes, and viruses), pseudo-synthetic vectors (polymercoated liposomes, polymerantibody hybrids), and synthetic vectors (polymer conjugates, polymeric micelles, and nanoparticles). The concepts of antibody-conjugates, liposomes, nanoparticles, and polymer-conjugates were born in the 1970s. Nanomedicine is beginning to emerge from research in nanotechnology.

Nanotechnology refers to the manipulation of single atoms via the structural control of matter at the molecular level. Nanotechnology is working on a scale of 1 billionth of a meter to yield nanodevices such as mini machines and nanomaterias.

Looking to the nanosize range, "nanomedicine" can be best defined as the science and technology of diagnosing, treating, and preventing disease and traumatic injury; relieving pain; and preserving and improving human health, using molecular tools and molecular knowledge of the human body. Nanomedicine can also be defined as the application of atom manipulation to the preclusion and hopeful treatment of diseases that can otherwise infect the human body. Lastly, nanomedicine has been described as medical treatment at the level of single molecules or molecular assemblies that provide structure, control, signaling, homeostasis, and motility in cells (ie, at the "nano" scale of about 100 nm or less).

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