How the Use of Nanomedicine at Nanoscale Contributes to Diagnosis, Treatment of Disease

According to University of Michigan Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences Duxin Sun, nanomedicine has not reached that level of sophistication yet from which a microscope robotic ship is used through the body of a man to clear a blood clot in his brain.

However, as specified in a Nanowerk report, scientists can yield nanomaterials tinier than several nanometers; the "nano" that indicates one-billionth of a meter, nanotechnology today, has not been able to produce functional electronic robotics small enough to inoculate safely into the bloodstream.

However, since this notion of nanotechnology was initially introduced in the 1970s, it has made its mark in numerous dairy products, including fabrics, water, air treatment processes, electronics, drugs, and cosmetics.

Given these successes throughout different fields, many medical researchers were enthusiastic about employing nanotechnology in disease diagnosis and treatment.

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(Photo: CLEMENT MAHOUDEAU/AFP via Getty Images)
This photograph shows vials of Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines against the coronavirus disease Covid-19.

Potential Treatment for Metastatic Breast Cancer

Sun, a pharmaceutical scientist, said he was "inspired by the promise of nanomedicine." His lab has worked on developing cancer treatment using nanomaterials over the last two decades.

@twitter|https://twitter.com/DuxinSun/status/1521928216440619013?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw@

While nanomedicine has seen a lot of successes, some scientists like Sun have been disappointed by its underwhelming general performance in cancer.

Sun and others in the field proposed a new approach to design cancer therapeutics using nanomaterials to better translate such a success in the lab to treatments in the clinical setting.

They developed a treatment that could achieve total remission in mice with metastatic breast cancer using this approach.

Nanomedicine for mRNA Vaccines

A term referring to materials at the nanoscale, nanomedicine is employed to diagnose and treat a disease.

Some scientists define "encompassing any medical product" using nanomaterials tinier than 1,000 nanometers.

Others are more narrowly using the word to refer to "injectable drugs using nanoparticles" tinier than 200 nanometers. Anything more significant may not prove safe for injection into the bloodstream. A lot of nanomaterials have proven successful in terms of use in vaccines.

According to a report from The Conversation, the most popular example of such vaccines today are the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccines.

They are used as nanoparticles made of lipids or fatty acids, helping carry the mRNA to where it should go in the body to stimulate an immune response.

Nanomaterials Used in Diagnostics and Medical Imaging

Scientists have successfully employed nanomaterials for both medical imaging and diagnostics. Essentially, rapid COVID-19 and pregnancy tests use gold nanoparticles to form the colored band that specifies a positive result.

MRI or magnetic resonance imaging frequently uses nanoparticles as "contrast agents" that help make an image more seen.

Several nanoparticle-based drugs have been authorized for the treatment of cancer. Doxil or doxorubicin, and Abraxane or paclitaxel, are chemotherapy drugs using nanomaterials as a delivery mechanism to enhance the efficacy of the treatment, not to mention reduction of side effects.

Moreover, the potential of nanomedicine to enhance the effectiveness of a drug and its toxicity is attractive for cancer researchers who work with anti-cancer drugs that frequently have strong side effects. Certainly, 65 percent of clinical tests using nanoparticles are focused on cancer.

Related information about nanoparticles used in cancer treatment is shown on TED's YouTube video below: