Nanomaterials for cancer therapy: current progress and perspectives

Abstract

Cancer is a disease with complex pathological process. Current chemotherapy faces problems such as lack of specificity, cytotoxicity, induction of multi-drug resistance and stem-like cells growth. Nanomaterials are materials in the nanorange 1–100 nm which possess unique optical, magnetic, and electrical properties. Nanomaterials used in cancer therapy can be classified into several main categories. Targeting cancer cells, tumor microenvironment, and immune system, these nanomaterials have been modified for a wide range of cancer therapies to overcome toxicity and lack of specificity, enhance drug capacity as well as bioavailability. Although the number of studies has been increasing, the number of approved nano-drugs has not increased much over the years. To better improve clinical translation, further research is needed for targeted drug delivery by nano-carriers to reduce toxicity, enhance permeability and retention effects, and minimize the shielding effect of protein corona. This review summarizes novel nanomaterials fabricated in research and clinical use, discusses current limitations and obstacles that hinder the translation from research to clinical use, and provides suggestions for more efficient adoption of nanomaterials in cancer therapy.

Application of nanotechnology in the diagnosis and treatment of bladder cancer

“…Nanotechnologic materials refer to those with nanometer scale size range (1-100 nm) in at least one dimension. Materials at this scale have lots of specific properties from traditional macromolecules [ 111 ]. With this size, they can easily interact with elementary biological units like proteins, DNA and RNA [ 112 ].…”

A Review on Polymer and Lipid-Based Nanocarriers and Its Application to Nano-Pharmaceutical and Food-Based Systems

“…It is necessary to strike a delicate balance between high drug loading and particle size distribution and stability of liposomes. To better improve clinical translation, further research is needed for targeted drug delivery by nano-carriers to reduce toxicity, enhance permeability and retention effects, and minimize the shielding effect of protein corona ( 15 ). Therefore, it is critical to optimize the composition, preparation methods and properties of the lipid bilayer.…”

Combining nanotechnology with the multifunctional roles of neutrophils against cancer and inflammatory disease

“…4 Organic nanomaterials like liposomes, polymers, proteins, dendrimers and exosomes have been widely investigated in the biomedical field due to their versatility, while inorganic nanomaterials like metallic nanoparticles (NPs), black phosphorus, silica-based NPs and carbon-related nanostructures also display excellent research prospect because of their distinctive physiochemical features. 5–8 Their nanosize enables them to be used as ideal vectors to transport various therapeutic agents or get internalized by cells. Moreover, the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect facilitates the accumulation of NPs in tumor tissues, which is considered as the basis of NP-mediated targeted tumor therapies.…”