Nanorobot drug delivery

Adriano Cavalcanti is CEO and chairman of CAN Center for Automation in Nanobiotech. Adriano and his coleagues have proposed a nanorobot platform should enable patient pervasive monitoring, and details are given in prognosis with nanorobots application for intracranial treatments. This integrated system also points towards precise diagnosis and smart drug delivery for cancer therapy.


nanorobot for nanomedicine drug delivery


Simulated nanorobot for drug delivery

Fully operational nanorobots for biomedical instrumentation should be achieved as a result of nanobioelectronics and proteomics integration. The proposed platform should enable patient pervasive monitoring, and details are given in prognosis with nanorobots application for intracranial treatments. This integrated system also points towards precise diagnosis and smart drug delivery for cancer therapy.

The methodologies and the implemented 3D simulation described in our study served as a test bed for molecular machine prototyping. The numerical analysis and advanced simulations provided a better understanding on how nanorobots should interact inside the human body. Hence, based on such information, we have proposed the innovative hardware architecture with a nanorobot model for use in common medical applications. The nanorobot takes chemical and thermal gradient changes as interaction choices for in vivo treatments. The use of mobile phones with RF is adopted in this platform as the most effective approach for control upload, helping to interface nanorobots communication and energy supply.

The next steps in our work can be defined as follows: (a) model manufacturing with CNT-CMOS biochip integration; (b) laboratory studies for in vivo tests; and (c) commercialization. The pipeline for development in the medical sector typically requires research and efforts to get new ideas out of laboratories and into the marketplace

FURTHER READING
Nanorobot design website

They have written many papers on this work. Robert Freitas is involved in some of them.

Nanorobot architecture for medical target identification.

The nanorobot interaction with the described workspace shows how time actuation is improved based on sensor capabilities. Therefore, our work addresses the control and the architecture design for developing practical molecular machines. Advances in nanotechnology are enabling manufacturing nanosensors and actuators through nanobioelectronics and biologically inspired devices. Analysis of integrated system modeling is one important aspect for supporting nanotechnology in the fast development towards one of the most challenging new fields of science: molecular machines. The use of 3D simulation can provide interactive tools for addressing nanorobot choices on sensing, hardware architecture design, manufacturing approaches, and control methodology investigation.

Earlier work was with CMOS versions of small robots

Hardware architecture for nanorobots

Freitas' nanomedicine site

Center for Automation in Nanobiotech website

Remote-control nanoparticles deliver drugs directly into tumors

MIT scientists have devised remotely controlled nanoparticles that, when pulsed with an electromagnetic field, release drugs to attack tumors.


Here, dark gray nanoparticles carry different drug payloads (one red, one green). A remotely generated five-minute pulse of a low-energy electromagnetic field releases the green drug but not the red. A five-minute pulse of a higher-energy electromagnetic field releases the red drug, which had been tethered using a DNA strand twice as long as the green tether, as measured in base pairs. Image courtesy / Bhatia/von Maltzahn, MIT. Derfus, UCSD

Toward cancer drugs that penetrate 10 times deeper into the brain

A new drug-delivery system for cancer of the brain — one of the most difficult cancers to treat — has the potential to carry anticancer drugs 10 times deeper into tumors than conventional medications, researchers in Connecticut and New York report.

In the new study, Mark Saltzman and colleagues showed that linking the anticancer drug campothecin (CPT) to the polymer polyethylene glycol (PEG), increased drug diffusion to more than a centimeter from the implant site.

They also identified a promising CPT-PET compound that could deliver 11 times more medication to the tumor than the plain drug alone. For patients, those advantages could substantially improve chances for successful treatment, the researchers indicate.

Laser activate Gold nanorods trigger complex biochemical mechanism to kill cancer

Researchers have shown how tiny "nanorods" of gold can be triggered by a laser beam to blast holes in the membranes of tumor cells, setting in motion a complex biochemical mechanism that leads to a tumor cell's self-destruction.

The gold rods are less than 15 nanometers wide and 50 nanometers long, or roughly 200 times smaller than a red blood cell. Their small size is critical for the technology's potential medical applications: the human immune system quickly clears away particles larger than 100 nanometers, whereas smaller nanoparticles can remain in the bloodstream far longer.

Shining light on the gold nanorods causes them to become extremely hot, ionizing the molecules around them.

"This generates a plasma bubble that lasts for about a microsecond, in a process known as cavitation," Wei said. "Every cavitation event is like a tiny bomb. Then suddenly, you have a gaping hole where the nanorod was."

The gold nanorods also are ideal for a type of optical imaging known as two-photon luminescence, used by Cheng and his research group to monitor the position of nanorods in real time during tumor-cell targeting. The imaging technique provides higher contrast and brighter images than conventional fluorescent imaging methods.

The findings suggest an optimal window of opportunity for applying near-infrared light to the nanorods for cancer treatment.

"We like to believe this opens the possibility of using nanorods for biomedical imaging as well as for therapeutic purposes," Cheng said.

The Purdue researchers observed that light-absorbing nanorods cause the formation of membrane "blebs, " similar to severe blistering. These blisters, however, are not produced directly by the high heat generated by the nanorods.

"The blebbing is triggered by the nanorods, but it's really caused through a complex biochemical pathway - a chemically induced process," Cheng said. "Extra calcium gets into the cell and triggers enzyme activity, which causes the infrastructure inside the cell to become loose, and that gives rise to the membrane blebs."

Researchers used a calcium-sensitive fluorescent dye to back up their argument that calcium influx caused the tumor cell death. When the nanorod-bearing tumor cells were maintained in a calcium-free nutrient medium, no blisters were formed if the nanorods were exposed to near-infrared light. But when the researchers added calcium to the medium, the blebbing took place immediately.

Although the technique offers promise for a new cancer treatment, it is too early to determine when it could be in clinical use, said Wei, who is collaborating with the National Cancer Institute to determine the suitability of the functionalized gold nanorods for future clinical studies.

Nanodiamonds delivery chemotherapy drugs without negative side effects

Northwestern University researchers have shown that nanodiamonds -- much like the carbon structure as that of a sparkling 14 karat diamond but on a much smaller scale -- are very effective at delivering chemotherapy drugs to cells without the negative effects associated with current drug delivery agents.

Their study, published online by the journal Nano Letters, is the first to demonstrate the use of nanodiamonds, a new class of nanomaterials, in biomedicine. In addition to delivering cancer drugs, the model could be used for other applications, such as fighting tuberculosis or viral infections, say the researchers.

Nanodiamonds promise to play a significant role in improving cancer treatment by limiting uncontrolled exposure of toxic drugs to the body. The research team reports that aggregated clusters of nanodiamonds were shown to be ideal for carrying a chemotherapy drug and shielding it from normal cells so as not to kill them, releasing the drug slowly only after it reached its cellular target.

To make the material effective, Ho and his colleagues manipulated single nanodiamonds, each only two nanometers in diameter, to form aggregated clusters of nanodiamonds, ranging from 50 to 100 nanometers in diameter. The drug, loaded onto the surface of the individual diamonds, is not active when the nanodiamonds are aggregated; it only becomes active when the cluster reaches its target, breaks apart and slowly releases the drug. (With a diameter of two to eight nanometers, hundreds of thousands of diamonds could fit onto the head of a pin.)

“The nanodiamond cluster provides a powerful release in a localized place -- an effective but less toxic delivery method,” said co-author Eric Pierstorff, a molecular biologist and post-doctoral fellow in Ho’s research group. Because of the large amount of available surface area, the clusters can carry a large amount of drug, nearly five times the amount of drug carried by conventional materials.

Liposomes and polymersomes, both spherical nanoparticles, currently are used for drug delivery. While effective, they are essentially hollow spheres loaded with an active drug ready to kill any cells, even healthy cells that are encountered as they travel to their target. Liposomes and polymersomes also are very large, about 100 times the size of nanodiamonds -- SUVs compared to the nimble nanodiamond clusters that can circulate throughout the body and penetrate cell membranes more easily.

Unlike many of the emerging nanoparticles, nanodiamonds are soluble in water, making them clinically important. “Five years ago while working in Japan, I first encountered nanodiamonds and saw it was a very soluble material,” said materials scientist Houjin Huang, lead author of the paper and also a post-doctoral fellow in Ho’s group. “I thought nanodiamonds might be useful in electronics, but I didn’t find any applications. Then I moved to Northwestern to join Dean and his team because they are capable of engineering a broad range of devices and materials that interface well with biological tissue. Here I’ve focused on using nanodiamonds for biomedical applications, where we’ve found success.

“Nanodiamonds are very special,” said Huang. “They are extremely stable, and you can do a lot of chemistry on the surface, to further functionalize them for targeting purposes. In addition to functionality, they also offer safety -- the first priority to consider for clinical purposes. It’s very rare to have a nanomaterial that offers both.”

“It’s about optimizing the advantages of a material,” said Ho, a member of the Lurie Cancer Center. “Our team was the first to forge this area -- applying nanodiamonds to drug delivery. We’ve talked to a lot of clinicians and described nanodiamonds and what they can do. I ask, ‘Is that useful to you?’ They reply, ‘Yes, by all means.’”

For their study, Ho and his team used living murine macrophage cells, human colorectal carcinoma cells and doxorubicin hydrochloride, a widely used chemotherapy drug. The drug was successfully loaded onto the nanodiamond clusters, which efficiently ferried the drug inside the cells. Once inside, the clusters broke up and slowly released the drug.

In the genetic studies, the researchers exposed cells to the bare nanodiamonds (no drug was present) and analyzed three genes associated with inflammation and one gene for apoptosis, or cell death, to see how the cells reacted to the foreign material. Looking into the circuitry of the cell, they found no toxicity or inflammation long term and a lack of cell death. In fact, the cells grew well in the presence of the nanodiamond material.

Developing a modular, nanoparticle drug delivery system

There are two aspects to creating an effective drug: finding a chemical compound that has the desired biological effect and minimal side-effects and then delivering it to the right place in the body for it to do its job.

With the support from a $478,000, five-year CAREER award from the National Science Foundation, Eva Harth is tackling the second part of this problem. She is creating a modular, multi-functional drug delivery system that promises simultaneously to enhance the effectiveness and reduce undesirable side-effects of a number of different drugs.

Harth has taken a different approach from other researchers working on nanotechnology for drug development. Instead of trying to encapsulate drugs in nanoscale containers, she decided to create a nanoparticle that had a large number of surface sites where drug molecules could be attached. To do so, she adopted a method that uses extensive internal cross-linking to scrunch a long, linear molecule into a sphere about 10 nanometers in diameter, about the size of a protein. Nanoparticles like this are called nanosponges.

Hamm studies G proteins, arguably the most important signaling molecules in the cell. Scientists think that many diseases, including diabetes and certain forms of pituitary cancer, are caused by malfunctioning G proteins. She and Harth are collaborating on using the transporter to deliver peptides produced by G proteins that disrupt signaling pathways.

“Eva’s methods for drug delivery are very novel and versatile and can be adapted to delivery of proteins, peptides, DNA and smaller chemical compounds like most drugs. The breadth of applications makes her technology very powerful,” Hamm says.

She is now working with Hallahan to adapt her delivery system to carry cisplatinum, a traditional chemotherapy agent that is used to treat a number of different kinds of cancer but is highly toxic and has a number of unpleasant side effects.

By delivering the anti-cancer agent directly to the cancerous tissues, Eva’s system decreases the adverse effects on other tissues and increases its potency by delivering a higher concentration of the drug directly on the cancer, Hallahan explains.

“The people in my lab have tried at a number of different drug delivery systems and Eva’s works the best of those we’ve looked at,” Hallahan says.

Safer Light-Activated Nanoparticle Cancer Therapy

Oncologists have long suspected that photodynamic therapy could find broader use if only there was some way to limit the accumulation of photosensitizer molecules to tumors, sparing healthy tissue from unintended damage. Now, using modified silica nanoparticles, a team of investigators at the State University of New York, Buffalo, has developed a photosensitizer delivery method that has the potential to target tumor cells specifically.

His group has used porous silica nanoparticles modified in such a way as to form a strong chemical bond between the nanoparticles and the photosensitizer molecules. When exposed to light, the permanently entrapped photosensitizer still produces reactive oxygen molecules that can diffuse out of the nanoparticles through their porous silica shells.

The investigators found, too, that human colon cancer cells readily take up the photosensitizer-loaded nanoparticles. More importantly, shining light on these cells resulted in their death.

Coated carbon nanotubes retain ability to bind to drugs and imaging agents

In the quest to turn carbon nanotubes from nanoscale wonder into clinically useful drug and imaging agent delivery agents, researchers have often added polymer coatings to the outside of the nanotubes in order to render them biocompatible. Now, researchers at Stanford University have found that even when coated, carbon nanotubes retain the ability to bind extraordinarily large numbers of drug and imaging agent molecules in a stable yet reversible manner.

Reporting its work in the journal ACS Nano, a research team led by Hongjie Dai, Ph.D., an investigator in the Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence Focused on Therapy Response, showed that polymer-coated single-walled carbon nanotubes spontaneously absorbed the cancer drug doxorubicin onto their surfaces when the drug was added to the nanotubes dissolved in water. The resulting construct contained approximately 50 to 60 percent doxorubicin by weight, far higher than the 8 to 10 percent obtained with either liposomes or dendrimers.

More SENS3 Reports

Matthew S. O’Connor (okee, a.k.a. Dr. Okie) reports on the SENS3 conference on life extension at the Ouroboros website. Okee is currently a postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley, Bioengineering Department in the laboratory of Dr. Irina Conboy.

Biomedical remediation (essentially the brain-child of Aubrey de Grey) is moving along quickly.

Two teams have identified strains of bacteria capable of using 7-ketocholesterol (one precursor of the poorly defined lipofuscin) as energy. The next goal is to clone the genes. After that they want to purify the enzyme responsible and feed it to people and see if it will break down our lipofuscin.

Okee's issue:

is that they are trying to solve a problem that hasn’t been proved to be a problem yet. Lipofuscin accumulation has long been associated with aging in many tissues, but never (as far as I am aware) proved to be responsible for any illness, ailment, or disease. Now, don’t get me wrong, Aubrey makes an excellent argument for this being a serious problem with no traditional biomedical solution in sight, but it’s still just theory.

In Okee's opinion:
wound healing and artificial repair was the most provocative and promising aspect of the research at SENS 3.

Cato Laurencin has an approach called “regenerative engineering.”

Okee's comment:

It was amazing, however, to see someone actually using a few in something practical! In my opinion, this is the reality of regenerative medicine: an innovative surgeon combining technology and knowledge of biology to partially repair injuries such that they will heal as well, or better than they started.

Dr. Laurencin showed results from his work on 3D absorbable poly L-lactide (PLLA) scaffolds that seem to promote recovery from surgery much more efficiently than traditional methods. This is a microsphere-based scaffold, which promotes efficient invasion and engraftment of osteoblasts to help repair bone. He is also investigating surfaces with nano-scale grooves, which are more conducive to mesenchymal stem cell proliferation.

There is scarless repair of brain tissue using nanofibers to accelerate the healing:

Rutledge Ellis-Behnke spoke on his work with SAPNS: Self Assembling Peptide Nanofiber Scaffold. Essentially, he squirts a solution containing these nanofibers into wound sites and reportedly achieves amazing results. He reports dramatic recovery from serious brain injury: both scarless repair of bulk brain tissue removal and reinnervation. In addition, he claims that the nanofibers can dramatically stop bleeding in wounds (he showed video of this). These results are so dramatic that they are almost unbelievable.

From the research paper [they are stopping bleeding in the brain in 15 seconds]:

This novel therapy stops bleeding without the use of pressure, cauterization, vasoconstriction, coagulation, or cross-linked adhesives. The self-assembling solution is nontoxic and nonimmunogenic, and the breakdown products are amino acids, which are tissue building blocks that can be used to repair the site of injury. Here we report the first use of nanotechnology to achieve complete hemostasis in less than 15 seconds, which could fundamentally change how much blood is needed during surgery of the future.

Two groups and three speakers addressed the issue of aged muscle, muscle regeneration, and muscle stem cells.

One of the groups work supports the idea that muscle stem cells remain intrinsically young, even while their tissue ages around them. Another group revitalized old muscle stem cells.

A startup company, Sangamo, has developed gene editing, which different from gene therapy. It’s not introducing exogenous DNA into your cells, it’s editing your genomic DNA.

One drawback for Dr Cui GIFT method of cancer treatment is that it requires 10 donors for every recipient. I speculate, we will probably need to use telomeres and culturing of cells to increase the volume of cells for donation.

Quick and dirty advice for keeping nanotech clean

IEEE Spectrum discusses how to keep nanoparticles safe

There is a growing body of evidence that ­nanotechnological chemicals and related substances could pollute the air, soil, and water and damage human health. Preliminary studies from Arizona State University suggest that nanoparticles accumulate in the food chain and could cause problems later on. There is an opportunity to deploy nanoparticles properly.

We need to look at nano­technology broadly, anticipate its adverse effects, and prevent problems. Prudently avoiding a crisis is always better than trying to repair damage later on.

The IEEE Spectrum article is discussing nanotechnology to mean:

When we talk about nanotechnology, we mean that the materials involved exist as microscopic particles with at least one dimension that is between 1 and 100 nanometers. To put this in perspective, consider that the typi­cal nanosize particle of titanium dioxide in sunscreen is 20 nm in diameter. The particle is a clump of about a ­million molecules. A grain of pollen is about 1000 times the size of this titanium dioxide nano­particle; bacterial cells are around 100 times as large, and the width of a human hair is about 4000 times as great.

Nanotechnology refers to manufactured materials in the nanosize range, or to manufactured products containing these materials.

The health risks and concerns of nanoparticles:
In 2003, Chiu-wing Lam of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, in Houston, instilled carbon

nanotubes into the lungs of mice and reported that they triggered granulomas, or areas of ­inflammation. In a similar experiment, David Warheit at Dupont’s Haskell Laboratory for Toxicity and Industrial Medicine, in Newark, Del., found such inflammation in rats’ lungs in the same year. Perhaps most troubling of all, nanoparticles can make their way into the brain by passing from the nose through the blood-brain barrier, a membrane that protects the brain from chemicals in the blood while allowing oxygen, carbon dioxide, sugars, and certain amino acids to pass through unaltered.

In 2004, experiments by Eva Oberdörster, a lecturer in bio­logical sciences at Southern Methodist University, in Dallas, found that the buckyball, a nanostructure made of carbon atoms, can penetrate the brains of bass via the gills. There, the nanoparticles trigger a reaction in brain enzymes called oxidative stress, a change in brain chemistry that indicates harm. Eva Oberdörster (a daughter of Günter) also discovered that buckyballs are toxic to daphnia, tiny freshwater fleas used to test toxicity in aquatic systems [see photo, “Aquatic Mine Canaries”]. The buckyballs did not clump together and sink harmlessly to the bottom of the test sites as researchers had expected.

Researchers are also concerned about persistence. Because of their small size and light weight, nanoparticles can stay aloft in the upper atmosphere much longer than coarse particulate air pollutants, and current filter technologies for controlling particles have holes that are a thousand times too big to trap nanoparticles. Nanoparticles may also bioaccumulate. For example, bacteria can ingest them, so the particles could become part of our food chain. And we know that chemical pollutants, like some pesticides, can also accumulate in the chain. At the moment, though, we don’t know what effect nanomaterials will have on the food supply.

Good things that are happening and green nanotechnology trends to continue:

One bright sign is that industry groups and government agencies are beginning to include concerns about nanotechnology in their long-term research planning. An encouraging new initiative is Green Nanotechnology, pioneered by the EPA and the Woodrow Wilson Inter­national Center for Scholars, in Washington, D.C. The two organizations are developing a framework and recommended practices that would help prevent manufacturers from releasing substances currently recognized as pollutants into the atmosphere, as well as prevent the manufacture of products containing nanomaterials that would knowingly harm the environment. The development of guidelines for Green Nanotechnology would let consumers or governments reward companies that are performing well, on the model of Energy Star, a joint program of the EPA and the Department of Energy. It sets guidelines for energy efficiency of consumer products and allows products that meet those guidelines to display Energy Star labels.

Recently, there was a small but significant victory: manufacturers of gold nanoparticles used for paint and, potentially, environmental cleanup and cancer treatment, developed a manufacturing method that eliminated the use of a toxic organic chemical and replaced it with water, reducing energy use at the same time.

Green Nano also means using nanotechnology itself to clean up production processes. The semiconductor industry can replace dangerous chemicals such as the perfluorooctane sulfonate polymers used in photo resists, antireflective coatings, and reagents with less toxic nano alternatives. Nanomembranes can filter out waste and pollutants in chemical processes. Nano-enabled sensors can improve process control and monitor emissions. Nanoproducts that improve energy efficiency, such as solar cells or better conducting materials, indirectly improve the environment through lower power-plant emissions.

Researchers set new record for brightness of quantum dots

By placing quantum dots on a specially designed photonic crystal, researchers at the University of Illinois have demonstrated enhanced fluorescence intensity by a factor of up to 108. Potential applications include high-brightness light-emitting diodes, optical switches and personalized, high-sensitivity biosensors.

A quantum dot is a tiny piece of semiconductor material 2 to 10 nanometers in diameter (a nanometer is 1 billionth of a meter). When illuminated with invisible ultraviolet light, a quantum dot will fluoresce with visible light.

To enhance the fluorescence, Cunningham and colleagues at the U. of I. begin by creating plastic sheets of photonic crystal using a technique called replica molding. Then they fasten commercially available quantum dots to the surface of the plastic.

Quantum dots normally give off light in all directions. However, because the researchers’ quantum dots are sitting on a photonic crystal, the energy can be channeled in a preferred direction – toward a detector, for example.

While the researchers report an enhancement of fluorescence intensity by a factor of up to 108 compared with quantum dots on an unpatterned surface, more recent (unpublished) work has exceeded a factor of 550.

“The enhanced brightness makes it feasible to use photonic crystals and quantum dots in biosensing applications from detecting DNA and other biomolecules, to detecting cancer cells, spores and viruses,” Cunningham said. “More exotic applications, such as personalized medicine based on an individual’s genetic profile, may also be possible.”

Nanoparticle Vaccine Is Both More Effective And Less Expensive

from Sciencedaily, bioengineering researchers from the EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland, have developed and patented a nanoparticle that can deliver vaccines more effectively, with fewer side effects, and at a fraction of the cost of current vaccine technologies.

This technology may make it possible to vaccinate against diseases like hepatitis and malaria with a single injection. And at an estimated cost of only a dollar a dose, this technology represents a real breakthrough for vaccine efforts in the developing world.

Thanks to recent advances, an immune response can be triggered with just a single protein from a virus or bacterium. Recent research has also shown that the best way to get sustained immunity is to deliver an antigen directly to specialized immune cells known as dendritic cells (DCs). Current methods have trouble obtaining an adequate immune response with a single injection and can cause side effects or even be toxic.

EPFL professors Jeff Hubbell and Melody Swartz and PhD student Sai Reddy have engineered nanoparticles that completely overcome these limitations. At a mere 25 nanometers, these particles are so tiny that once injected, they flow through the skin's extracellular matrix, making a beeline to the lymph nodes. Within minutes, they've reached a concentration of DCs thousands of times greater than in the skin. The immune response can then be extremely strong and effective.

In addition, the EPFL team has also engineered a special chemical coating for the nanoparticles that mimics the surface chemistry of a bacterial cell wall. The DCs don't recognize this as a specific invader, but do know that it's something foreign, and so a low-level, generic immune reaction known as "complement" is triggered. This results in a particularly potent immune response without the risk of unpleasant or toxic side effects.

Cost and logistics are important factors, especially for use in developing countries. Unlike other nanoparticle vaccine technologies that degrade in water and thus require expensive drying and handling procedures, the EPFL team's nanoparticles won't degrade until they are in the body. They are in liquid form and don't require refrigeration, so preparation and handling costs are reduced, and they are easy to transport.

More study is required to achieve these goals," she adds, "but we have every reason to believe this technique could be in use within five years."

Roche-Ventana would further gene diagnostics and treatment

Businessweek reports on a possible merger of Roche-Ventana

Swiss Pharmaceutical giant Roche Holdings (RMMBY ) caught Wall Street by surprise in June when it launched a $75-a-share hostile bid for Ventana Medical Systems (VMSI ). The Tucson company pulled in just $238 million last year selling tools that help doctors analyze tissue samples to diagnose cancer. Roche's bid values the company at about $3 billion.

What Roche and Ventana share is an intimate understanding of the next revolution in medicine. In the coming decade, pharmaceutical products--especially cancer drugs--will be created in tandem with diagnostic tests that tell doctors which patients are likely to benefit. Right now, physicians often feel they're flying blind. Each patient arrives at the hospital with a unique genetic makeup, which affects whether a prescribed drug will kill tumor cells, cause devastating side effects, or possibly do nothing at all. If a new generation of gene tests can help predict these different outcomes, patients will be spared expensive and unhelpful ordeals. The pool of target patients for many medications will also shrink. But if doctors are confident a drug will help somebody, they'll prescribe it aggressively, and insurers will be more likely to foot the bill.

Roche is the most ardent evangelist for this pairing of drugs with gene-based diagnostics--an approach called personalized medicine.

Ventana and Roche both are facing regulatory hurdles. At present, the Food & Drug Administration has separate channels for reviewing drugs and diagnostics, and no procedure for reviewing them in combination.

For experts like Abrahams, the logic in pairing tests and treatments is irrefutable.

Introduction to nanopharmaceuticals

Nanomedicine is the medical application of nanotechnology. It covers areas such as nanoparticle drug delivery and possible future applications of molecular nanotechnology (MNT) and nanovaccinology.

A definition from the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Great Britain.

Nanopharmaceuticals represent an emerging field where the nanoscale element may refer to either the size of the drug particle or to a therapeutic delivery system. These therapeutic systems may be defined as a complex system consisting of at least two components, one of which is the active ingredient. In this field the concept of nanoscale is the range from 1 to 1,000nm. The definition includes polymer therapeutics, which share many characteristics with macromolecular prodrugs such as antibody conjugates of drugs.

The European Science Foundation definition.

Nanopharmaceuticals can be developed either as drug delivery systems or biologically active drug products.

This sub-discipline is defined as the science and technology of nanometre size scale complex systems, consisting of at least two components, one of which being the active ingredient. In this field the concept of nanoscale was seen to range from 1 to 1000 nm.

Nanopharmaceuticals as a big part of what nanomedicine is today. From the Ruth Duncan presentation.

Various kinds of nanoscale particles used for nanopharmaceuticals

Nanoparticles is a microscopic particle with at least one dimension less than 100 nm.

Liposomes is a spherical vesicle composed of a bilayer membrane. In biology, this specifically refers to a membrane composed of a phospholipid and cholesterol bilayer

Antibody conjugates
A conjugate vaccine is created by covalently attaching a poor antigen to a carrier protein, thereby conferring the immunological attributes of the carrier on the attached antigen. This technique for the creation of an effective immunogen is most often applied to bacterial polysaccharides for the prevention of invasive bacterial disease.

polymer therapeutics

From the Ruth Duncan presentation

Buckyballs and Nanotubes

Nanoemulsions is a type of emulsion in which the sizes of the particles in the dispersed phase are defined as less than 1000 nanometers. A nanoemulsion of soybean oil to create drops of 400-600 nanometers in diameter will kill many pathogens such as bacteria and viruses.

Quantum Dots is a semiconductor nanostructure that confines the motion of conduction band electrons, valence band holes, or excitons (bound pairs of conduction band electrons and valence band holes) in all three spatial directions. The confinement can be due to electrostatic potentials (generated by external electrodes, doping, strain, impurities), the presence of an interface between different semiconductor materials (e.g. in core-shell nanocrystal systems), the presence of the semiconductor surface (e.g. semiconductor nanocrystal), or a combination of these

Small quantum dots, such as colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals, can be as small as 2 to 10 nanometers, corresponding to 10 to 50 atoms in diameter and a total of 100 to 100,000 atoms within the quantum dot volume. Self-assembled quantum dots are typically between 10 and 50 nm in size. Quantum dots defined by lithographically patterned gate electrodes, or by etching on two-dimensional electron gases in semiconductor heterostructures can have lateral dimensions exceeding 100 nm. At 10 nm in diameter, nearly 3 million quantum dots could be lined up end to end and fit within the width of a human thumb.

Dendrimers - Dendrimers are synthetic polymers, a thousand times smaller than cells. Dendrimers can be synthesized in various predetermined sizes, and can interact with biological agents by modifying their surface properties.

FURTHER READING
An article on nanopharmaceuticals and veterinary medicine

Presentation by Ruth Duncan on nanopharmaceuticals

A nanopharmaceuticals site

Launching nanoparticle drug delivery site

Here is the start of my site devoted to nanoparticle drug delivery. I am providing it as a service so that fewer people will need to buy overpriced market reports on the same subject. I will also launch several other sites on near term nanotechnology subjects. My main website on future technology with a significant focus on advanced nanotechnology is advancednano

The Drug delivery is a multi-billion dollar business. Some calculate it as a 9.8 billion business. Led by the strong growth of biotechnology drugs requiring novel delivery technologies, the injectable/implantable drug delivery market reached revenues of $9.8 billion in 2006

Nanotechnology in drug delivery

A drug delivery website

Drug delivery stocks

The 9th annual drug delivery symposium coming Dec 16-20, 2007 is only about $600 versus $5000 or more for some market reports

Advance Nanotech Singapore Pte. Ltd. owns 75% of Nano Solutions Limited (Imperial College, London) which is developing Nanovindex. Nanovindex is a nanoparticle-hydrogel composites for drug delivery.

From 2005, 10Q

Nanotechnologies have already begun to change the scale and methods of drug delivery and hold huge potential for future developments in this area. Nanotechnology can provide new formulations and routes for drug delivery that broaden their therapeutic potential enormously by allowing the delivery of new types of medicine to previously inaccessible sites in the body. Novel composites incorporating nanoparticles are particularly exciting for these applications. A key to gaining competitiveness within the market is to develop next generation composites which are extremely sensitive to a variety of environmental stimuli. NanoVindex aims to achieve this by utilising expertise in rational peptide design to incorporate specific pH, enzymes and temperature triggers within the composites enabling a new level of control over the release of encapsulated drugs.

Technology

NanoVindex is seeking to develop a platform technology of nanoparticle-hydrogel composites for tailored drug delivery applications. The development shall leverage the research of Imperial College London in rational design of self-assembling peptide systems, control over the nanoscale organic/inorganic interface, and physiologically responsive bio-nano materials. Revenues to drug delivery companies were $1.3bn in 2002 and projected to increase to $6.7bn by 2012. With the focus evermore on emerging nanotechnologies and the improvements these may offer over more conventional systems, the market for new nanotechnologies in drug delivery is poised to be a multi-billion dollar arena. These technologies have the potential to revolutionise the pharmaceutical industry.

FURTHER READING
Abstract on Hydrogel-Nanofiber Composite Systems For Drug Delivery

2003 patent, Composite hydrogel drug delivery systems

google search of hydrgel composites drug delivery

Google search on nanoparticle drug delivery

Other drug delivery market studies by Kalorama