Nanomedicine Commons^™

Copper Nanoparticles And Their Future In Drug Delivery And Anticancer Therapy, Keykavous Parang, Rajesh Vadlapatla, Cassia Charles, Kimberly Tang, Trang Nguyen, Amir Nasrolahi Shirazi, Ajoy Koomer

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Copper nanoparticles (CuNPs) have attracted growing attention in nanomedicine owing to their distinctive physicochemical, optical, and biological properties. Their large surface area, tunable size, ease of surface modification, and low cost make them attractive candidates for drug delivery, where they can both improve delivery efficiency and enable stimuli-responsive release. CuNPs also possess intrinsic antimicrobial, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, and photothermal activities, further broadening their biomedical utility. In this review, we synthesize recent advances in the synthesis, characterization, surface functionalization, and biomedical application of CuNPs, comparing chemical, physical, and green synthetic routes and their effects on stability, biocompatibility, and therapeutic efficacy. We examine …

Targeting Bone In Cancer Therapy: Advances And Challenges Of Bisphosphonate-Based Drug Delivery Systems, Fariba Ganji, Mohammadmahdi Eshaghi, Hossein Shaki, Lobat Tayebi

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Background and Purpose: Bisphosphonates (BPs) are well-known for their strong affinity toward bone mineral matrices and are widely used to inhibit excessive osteoclast activity associated with various bone disorders. Beyond their clinical use, their unique bone-targeting capability has positioned them as promising ligands for drug delivery systems aimed at treating bone-related cancers. Approach: The review analyses published studies on BP-functionalized drug delivery systems, including direct drug conjugates, calcium-based nanomaterials, carbon-based nanostructures, and self-assembling systems such as micelles and liposomes. In vitro assays (e.g. hydroxyapatite binding, cell viability) and in vivo biodistribution studies are discussed to evaluate targeting efficiency and …

Nanoparticle-Mediated Therapeutic Agent Delivery For Treating Metastatic Breast Cancer—Challenges And Opportunities, Yunfei Li, Brock Humphries, Chengfeng Yang, Zhishan Wang

Toxicology and Cancer Biology Faculty Publications

Breast cancer (BC) is the second leading cause of cancer-related death in American women and more than 90% of BC-related death is caused by metastatic BC (MBC). This review stresses the limited success of traditional therapies as well as the use of nanomedicine for treating MBC. Understanding the biological barriers of MBC that nanoparticle in vivo trafficking must overcome could provide valuable new insights for translating nanomedicine from the bench side to the bedside. A view about nanomedicine applied in BC therapy has been summarized with their present status, which is gaining attention in the clinically-applied landscape. The progressions of …

Calcium Phosphate As A Key Material For Socially Responsible Tissue Engineering, Vuk Uskoković, Victoria M. Wu

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Socially responsible technologies are designed while taking into consideration the socioeconomic, geopolitical and environmental limitations of regions in which they will be implemented. In the medical context, this involves making therapeutic platforms more accessible and affordable to patients in poor regions of the world wherein a given disease is endemic. This often necessitates going against the reigning trend of making therapeutic nanoparticles ever more structurally complex and expensive. However, studies aimed at simplifying materials and formulations while maintaining the functionality and therapeutic response of their more complex counterparts seldom provoke a significant interest in the scientific community. In this review …

Cancer Nanotheranostics: What Have We Learned So Far?, Joao Conde, Furong Tian, Jesus M. De La Fuente, Pedro V. Baptista

Articles

After a quarter of century of rapid technological advances, research has revealed the complexity of cancer, a disease intimately related to the dynamic transformation of the genome. However, the full understanding of the molecular onset of this disease is still far from achieved and the search for mechanisms of treatment will follow closely.

It is here that Nanotechnology enters the fray offering a wealth of tools to diagnose and treat cancer. Today, Nanotechnology is a burgeoning field that is helping to address critical global problems from cancer treatment to climate change. In fact, Nanotechnology is everywhere and is everyday practice …

Nanotechnology In Dental Sciences: Moving Towards A Finer Way Of Doing Dentistry, Vuk Uskoković, Luiz Eduardo Bertassoni

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Nanotechnologies are predicted to revolutionize: (a) the control over materials properties at ultrafine scales; and (b) the sensitivity of tools and devices applied in various scientific and technological fields. In this short review, we argue that dentistry will be no exception to this trend. Here, we present a dynamic view of dental tissues, an adoption of which may lead to finer, more effective and minimally invasive reparation approaches. By doing so, we aim at providing insights into some of the breakthroughs relevant to understanding the genesis of dental tissues at the nanostructural level or generating dental materials with nanoscale critical …