For decades, patients suffering from life-threatening ailments such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, AIDS and brain disorders, have been at the mercy of time. However, as the scopes of modern medicines broaden their horizons, health has succeeded - to reign over diseases. One such medical wonder is nanomedicine, which is dramatically changing the way medical science works.
By Debarati Das
With the advancements in medical research, nanomedicines is currently being used globally to improve the treatments of wide range of ailments including ovarian and breast cancer, kidney disease, fungal infections, elevated cholesterol, menopausal symptoms, multiple sclerosis, chronic pain, asthma, emphysema and many more.
Nanomedicine is the application of nanotechnologies in the medical field in which nanoparticles are used to improve the behaviour of drug substances. Nanotechnology can be used in monitoring, construction, repair, and control of human biological systems at the molecular level, using nanodevices and nanostructures.
Nanomedicines come as an alternative to the difficulties experienced by normal medical approaches in delivering the benefit from the drug molecules used. For instance, sometimes drugs have little solubility in water and the human body struggles to absorb the medication. In other cases, even though the drug molecule is absorbed well, the body eliminates the drug before the medication starts to give benefit. In cases of cancer treatment, the medication used leads to side-effects, as the medication also attacks healthy tissues and organs causing damage.
In such cases, nanomedicines play an important role in ensuring that adequate drug enters the body, and stays in the body for long periods and targets only those areas that need treatment.
Market Outreach
The rapid technological advancement in the field of nanomedicine across the globe has also ensured the growth of this industry.
The global nanomedicine market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 12.3 percent from 2013 to 2019 and would reach $177.60 billion by 2019, according to a report by Transparency Market Research (TMR). Also, the global nanomedicine market in 2012 was $78.54 billion, with nanomedicines for oncology alone capturing a 38 percent share of the overall industry. However, application in cardiovascular diseases is expected to witness the fastest growth in future with the rapid increase in the number of patients.
Furthermore, while North America has been the market leader since 2012 due to advanced healthcare infrastructure, Asia Pacific also shows exceptional potential in the future and is projected to grow at a 14.6 percent CAGR between 2013 and 2019. Some of the factors leading to its growth is prevalence of diseases, rising awareness regarding healthcare, rise in healthcare facilities and research, as per the study.
In Asia - China and India are expected to be the fastest-growing nanomedicines markets. The European market is also anticipated to report healthy growth during the forecast period.
Areas of Application
Nanomedicines have proved to be path changing potential in several areas of medical science. Here are some of the key areas where nanomedicines have made commendable progress:
Cancer: A World Health Organization (WHO) report forecasts 15 million new cases of cancer worldwide in 2020. Over 90 percent of deaths among cancer patients occur due to the spread of malignant cells to vital organs. Significant research has been taking place across the globe to develop specific treatments that can destroy primary and secondary tumours. Nanotechnology has made huge strides in cancer treatments providing a wide range of new tools and possibilities, from earlier diagnostics, improved imaging and targeted therapies.
Research has found that nanotechnology can work wonders in targeted drug delivery wherein nanoparticles can be injected into the tumour and then be activated to destroy cancer cells either by magnetic fields, X-Rays or light. This type of localised delivery of drug can reduce the quantity of drugs absorbed by the patient and decrease the side effects caused on healthy tissues in the body. Some scientists have achieved this with gold nanorods, which carry chemotherapy drugs and locally excited in the tumour by infrared light. The induced heat releases the encapsulated drug and helps to destroy the cancer cells.
Recently in 2015, a Manchester-based team of scientists designed microscopic ‘grenades’ that can explode their cancer-killing load into tumours. The team used liposomes, tiny bubbles of fat which carry materials around the body, to release toxic drugs when their temperature is raised. The process will avoid side effects by ensuring the drugs target only the tumour.
“This is still early work but these liposomes could be an effective way of targeting treatment towards cancer cells while leaving healthy cells unharmed,” said Professor Charles Swanton, the chairman of the conference.
The Nanomedicine Lab in Manchester has designed liposomes that are water-tight at normal body temperature but at 42-degree C, they become leaky.
“The challenge for us is to try to develop liposomes in such a way that they will be very stable at 37-degree C and not leak any cancer drug molecules and then abruptly release them at 42-degree C,” said Professor Kostas Kostarelos, University of Manchester, in a report.
HIV/AIDS
HIV/AIDS is described as a global pandemic and according to World Health organization, nearly 36.9 million people worldwide lived with HIV/AIDS at the end of 2014 and an estimated 2 million individuals worldwide became newly infected with HIV in 2014.
HIV treatment has several issues such as patient’s compliance with strict drug regimens. HIV mutation leads to resistance to existing therapies. HIV resides in various sites throughout the body and establishes reservoirs where it escapes from the effect of drugs and keeps releasing the viral progeny to the blood as long as the patient lives.
Nanomedicines can be extremely helpful in these cases for targeted delivery to HIV reservoir sites because many antiretroviral drugs do not penetrate these sites optimally which contribute not only to viral persistence but also to the development of drug resistance.
In a recent study, scientists at the University of Nebraska Medical Center designed a new delivery system for protease inhibitors, which are a class of antiviral drugs that are commonly used to treat HIV. The drug, when coupled with URMC-099, another drug developed at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, rid immune cells of HIV and keeps the virus in check for long periods.
The new drug delivery system, called the nanoformulated protease inhibitor, takes the drug and makes it into a crystal. This crystal drug is placed into a fat and protein coat. The coating protects the drug from being degraded by the liver and removed by the kidney. The drug could be given once every six months, which would greatly increase compliance, reduce side effects and help people manage the disease.
“The chemical marriage between URMC-099 and antiretroviral drug nanoformulations could increase drug longevity, improve patient compliance, and reduce general toxicities,” said Howard Gendelman, lead study author and professor and chair of the department of pharmacology and experimental neuroscience at Nebraska.
There are several researches taking place across the globe in this area. Although nanomedicines have promising future of HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, there are several hurdles in this technology such as toxicity, unwanted biological interactions and difficulty and cost of large-scale synthesis of nanopharmaceuticals.
Cardiovascular diseases
Research in the use of nanotechnology in cardiovascular diseases has focused on directed imaging and therapy of atherosclerosis, restenosis and over cardiovascular conditions. With the help of nanoscale contrast agents, it is possible to identify and characterise early disease stages prior to the development of gross disease manifestations, which can be detected by conventional clinical imaging techniques.
Various nanotechnological applications are coming up for the treatment of atherosclerosis and restenosis, including nanocarriers for drug delivery and devices such as mechanical stents, possessing nanoscale components.
Apart from this, a lot of research is happening to apply nanotechnologies for ex-vivo and in-vivo detection of precursor CVD signals, which can potentially reduce the risk of the diseases.
Scopes of Nanomedicine
The gamut of science has expanded so vast that there is no idea that is impossible to be achieved. Research across the globe is working towards making the most out of nanotechnogy and nanomedicines. Here are some astonishing areas where researchers are trying to crack the code and change the course of traditional medical procedures:
- Nanomachines could be employed to constantly monitor the internal chemistry of the body. Mobile nanorobots, equipped with wireless transmitters, could circulate in the blood and lymph systems, and send out warnings when chemical imbalances occur.
- Nanomachines could be planted in the nervous system to monitor pulse, brain-wave activity, and other functions and assist in the treatment of brain and nervous disorders.
- Nanotechnology devices could dispense drugs or hormones as needed in people with chronic imbalance or deficiency states.
- Artificial antibodies, artificial white and red blood cells, and antiviral nanorobots might be devised.
- Nanorobots can be used as miniature surgeons to repair damaged cells, or get inside cells and replace or assist damaged intracellular structures.
- Nanomachines can be used to correct genetic deficiencies by altering or replacing DNA molecules.
The scopes are limitless and as research advances, there will be innumerable ways in which nanotechnology will cure the most incurable diseases in the future.
Read More: New age capsules of microscopic ‘grenades’
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