Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
polymer micelles,
23-28
and dendrimers.
23,24,26,29-33
Thus, at the onset of stud-
ies, NMs-delivery systems for drugs had no active mechanisms of disease site
location and therapy, the second generation involves nanodrug-delivery systems
with targeting functionality
34-48
. The targeting functionality may be attributed to
(1) specific molecular recognition moieties on the nanovector to receptors over-
expressed on the tumor cells or adjacent blood vessels (such as Ab conjugated
NMs) or (2) a possibility for active/triggered release of the payload at the diseased
location (e.g. magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs)).
49,50
Thus, the NMs are superior
to their precursors through the use of targeting moieties, remote activation, and
environmentally sensitive components, bringing additional degrees of sophisti-
cation in design that promises increased success in accomplishing the intentions.
Additional sophistication through the design of logic embedded vectors (LEVs)
is envisioned as the natural successor for more effective accomplishment of the
intended applications.
51
LEVs are therapeutic multicomponent nanostructures
that are specifically engineered to avoid biological barriers, where the functions
of biorecognition, cytotoxicity and no susceptibility to biobarrier are decoupled
with efficacious operational harmony.
3
Ideally, this chemotherapeutic strategy
will be capable of navigating through the vasculature after intravenous admin-
istration, to reach the desired tumor site at full concentration, and to selectively
kill cancer cells with a cocktail of agents and at the same time have minimal
harmful side effects. These can be used also for advanced therapy and imaging
with immense potential for enhanced drug delivery that will bear a high impact
on the future of personalized medicine (
Figure 7.1
).
FIGURE 7.1
Schematic of targeted drug delivery using engineered NMs.
(For color version of
this figure, the reader is referred to the online version of this topic)
