Advanced Materials, Nanotechnology and Engineering

Track 20: Biomedical Nanotechnology

The major thrust of biomedical nanotechnology is to apply the benefits of nanotechnology to healthcare e.g., imaging and diagnostics; nanodrugs; drug delivery; prostheses; and implants; etc. Nanotechnology has been earlier used to improve drug properties. For example, pacliaxel Taxol, an anticancer drug, which is used to treat primary epithelial ovarian carcinoma, breast, colon, and lung cancers, exhibits low water solubility and, therefore, poor bioavailability. Therefore, it was formulated in Chremophor EL polyethoxylated castor oil, which has been implicated in several drug associated toxicities. To overcome these shortcomings associated with the use of Cremophor, paclitaxel bound to albumin nanoparticles Abraxane were developed for clinical use. There is a huge interest in employing nanotechnology for cancer drug delivery. The interest in cancer drug delivery stems from the fact that the nanoparticles passively target tumors by a process called enhanced permeability and retention EPR effect, as elucidated by Maeda and coworkers. It occurs because the tight junctions between endothelial cells of micro vessels measure around 2 nm 6 nm in kidney, liver, and spleen, whereas the pore size of tumor micro vessels varies from 100 to 1200 nm.