Applications of Ligand‐Engineered Nanomedicines

Abstract

Over the past two decades, many therapeutic modalities have been investigated for the treatment of cancer. Among the most promising new modalities in the field of medical applications is nanomedicine, which has proven to be an outstanding approach for improving the therapeutic index. As this chapter will show, nanomedicines can achieve remarkable improvements in anticancer efficacy not only by increasing bioavailability and half‐life, but also by promoting tumor‐accumulation of therapeutic entities through the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect. Moreover, through modifications of the surface of nanoparticles, nanomedicines have shown the ability to improve target‐specificity and further enhance the efficacy.

Bioabsorbable polymers in cancer therapy: latest developments

“…Regarding the applicability of hyaluronic acid in biomedical applications, several advantages can be pointed out: water-solubility, biodegradability, biocompatibility, non-toxicity, non-immunogenicity, and ease of chemical modification [ 33 ]. Another important feature of hyaluronic acid is its binding capacity to CD144 and CD168 (also known as receptor for hyaluronan-mediated motility, RHAMM) receptors, making it suitable to target cells that overexpress these receptors as cancer cells (squamous cell carcinoma, ovarian, colon, stomach, glioma, and many types of leukemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma) [ 33 , 37 – 39 ].…”