Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
out whether there is a difference between ultrafine particles and engineered
nanoparticles. As the variety of engineered nanoparticles increases every day
and more of them find their way into commercialisation, screening methods
determining whether the nanoparticles have properties that should be more
thoroughly tested, is highly needed. Moreover, the efficiency of targeting
nanoparticles to the tumor is not very high and the targeting is always not
perfect. The majority of the nanotechnology approaches applied in brain on-
cology reported are in the stages of in vitro or animal model testing. Prior to
the use of nanoengineered materials in clinical applications, major concerns,
including biocompatibility and biodistribution, biosafety, side-effects, and
long-term effects have to be addressed. Furthermore, personalized diagnos-
tics and the identification of unique biological targets (epitope sequences),
related to problems posed by disease variance, appear to be essential for
clinical success.
Objects of debate are the results about the long-term effects of inter-
actions between nanoparticles, and coating of molecules and target cells.
In order for this promising field to rapidly progress, focus must be placed
on elucidating the safety of these novel materials. This will rely on the de-
velopment of better characterization tools and methodologies, and more
reproducible synthesis strategies so that accurate and broadly applicable
conclusions can be drawn. Biomaterials can be formulated with anti-cancer
drugs to produce injectable or implantable polymer-drug conjugates allow-
ing sustained, localized delivery of therapeutic levels of the entrapped drug,
protein, gene, or other potential therapeutic. Besides, basic knowledge of cell
biology, tumor biology, immunology and cancer biology are necessary to the
rational design of nanoparticles for brain tumor therapy.
An optimal realization of a system that overcomes the problems associ-
ated with novel strategies in brain tumor treatments requires the identifica-
tion of specific neoplastic markers, the development of technology for the
biomarker-targeted delivery of therapeutic agents, and the simultaneous
capability of avoiding biological and biophysical barriers.
