Exploring Recent Advances in Nanotherapeutics

Abstract

Nanotechnology is a rapidly expanding field, encompassing the development of materials in a size range of 5-200 nanometers (nm). The applications of nanotechnology to drug delivery opened the floodgates to create novel therapeutics and diagnostics which have changed the landscape of pharmaceutical and biotechnological industries. Advances in nanotechnology are being utilized in medicine for therapeutic drug delivery and treatment of various diseases and disorders. The biodegradable nanoparticle/nanocarriers, in which drug is dissolved and entrapped are specially designed to absorb the drug and to protect it against chemical and enzymatic degradation. The important role to design these nanostructures as a delivery system is to release pharmacologically active molecules for site-specific action with an accurate dose. In recent times, several biodegradable polymeric nanostructures have been developed with an innate capacity to target specific organs/tissue to deliver the drug. Nanoparticulate drug delivery systems use polymers or lipids as carriers for drugs. Newer polymers engineered to achieve temporal and spatial drug delivery form the mainstay of these systems. In nanotechnology, being tiny molecules of immunotherapeutic have many advantages over biological drugs regarding complexity, tissue penetration, manufacturing cost, stability and shelf life, which is one of dominating therapy in the current research field. The present review gives details about the recent developments of nanostructure drug delivery systems and their applications. 
 Keywords: liposomes, polymeric micelles, gold nanoparticles, superparamagnetic nanoparticles, solid lipid nanoparticles, aptamers, quantum dots.