Chapter 1 - Nanotechnology for the Development of Nanomedicine

Abstract

A technology of 21st century, nanotechnology has the potential to transform almost every area of applications right from making a needle to robot. It is basically involves manipulating physical, chemical, biological and optical properties at the nanoscale, often involving dimensions that ranging from 1-100nm. In the field of medicine, it has already moved from being used in passive structures to active structures, through target specific delivery systems like dendrimers, liposomes, quantum dots, polymeric nanoparticles and metallic nanoparticles. These novel delivery systems have already been shown to be more effective than conventional delivery tools and also reported to have fewer side effects. The use of nanotechnology in the field of medicine could revolutionize the way we detect and treat the human diseases in the future. Today, many of these novel nanoscale delivery devices are under clinical practice or under research and developmental stage. The number of products approaching the approval and review process is likely to grow as time moves forward and as new nanotechnology medical applications are developed. Notably, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and European medical agencies (EMA) has signed the alliance to develop nanodevice technology for early detection, diagnosis, and treatment of various diseases like cancer, HIV, cardiac, respiratory and depression. This basic objective of this chapter is to discuss various nanotechnology based approaches that have attained significant attention in the biomedical field.