The application of liposomes to assist drug delivery has already had a major impact on many biomedical areas. They have been shown to be beneficial for stabilizing therapeutic compounds, overcoming obstacles to cellular and tissue uptake, and improving biodistribution of compounds to target sites in vivo. This enables effective delivery of encapsulated compounds to target sites while minimizing systemic toxicity. Liposomes present as an attractive delivery system due to their flexible physicochemical and biophysical properties, which allow easy manipulation to address different delivery considerations. Despite considerable research in the last 50 years and the plethora of positive results in preclinical studies, the clinical translation of liposome assisted drug delivery platforms has progressed incrementally. In this review, we will discuss the advances in liposome assisted drug delivery, biological challenges that still remain, and current clinical and experimental use of liposomes for biomedical applications. The translational obstacles of liposomal technology will also be presented.

/pdf/advances-and-challenges-of-liposome-assisted-drug-delivery-icfpw75u2e.pdf

Advances and Challenges of Liposome Assisted Drug Delivery.

Advances in nanoparticle synthesis and engineering have produced nanoscale agents affording both therapeutic and diagnostic functions that are often referred to by the portmanteau 'nanotheranostics'. The field is associated with many applications in the clinic, especially in cancer management. These include patient stratification, drug-release monitoring, imaging-guided focal therapy and post-treatment response monitoring. Recent advances in nanotheranostics have expanded this notion and enabled the characterization of individual tumours, the prediction of nanoparticle-tumour interactions, and the creation of tailor-designed nanomedicines for individualized treatment. Some of these applications require breaking the dogma that a nanotheranostic must combine both therapeutic and diagnostic agents within a single, physical entity; instead, it can be a general approach in which diagnosis and therapy are interwoven to solve clinical issues and improve treatment outcomes. In this Review, we describe the evolution and state of the art of cancer nanotheranostics, with an emphasis on clinical impact and translation.

Rethinking cancer nanotheranostics.

The use of nanotechnology in medicine has the potential to have a major impact on human health for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of diseases. One particular aspect of the nanomedicine field which has received a great deal of attention is the design and development of nanoparticulate nanomedicines (NNMs) for drug delivery (i.e., drug-containing nanoparticles). NNMs are intended to deliver drugs via various mechanisms: solubilization, passive targeting, active targeting, and triggered release. The NNM approach aims to increase therapeutic efficacy, decrease the therapeutically effective dose, and/or reduce the risk of systemic side effects. In order to move a NNM from the bench to the bedside, several experimental challenges need to be addressed. This review will discuss the current trends and challenges in the clinical translation of NNMs as well as the potential pathways for translational development and commercialization. Key issues related to the clinical development of NNMs will be covered, including biological challenges, large-scale manufacturing, biocompatibility and safety, intellectual property (IP), government regulations, and overall cost-effectiveness in comparison to current therapies. These factors can impose significant hurdles limiting the appearance of NNMs on the market, irrelevant of whether they are therapeutically beneficial or not.

/pdf/current-trends-and-challenges-in-the-clinical-translation-of-yf7cf2e1ma.pdf

Current Trends and Challenges in the Clinical Translation of Nanoparticulate Nanomedicines: Pathways for Translational Development and Commercialization

PEGylated and targeted extracellular vesicles display enhanced cell specificity and circulation time.

Nanoparticles as drug delivery system have received much attention in recent years, especially for cancer treatment. In addition to improving the pharmacokinetics of the loaded poorly soluble hydrophobic drugs by solubilizing them in the hydrophobic compartments, nanoparticles allowed cancer specific drug delivery by inherent passive targeting phenomena and adopted active targeting strategies. For this reason, nanoparticles-drug formulations are capable of enhancing the safety, pharmacokinetic profiles and bioavailability of the administered drugs leading to improved therapeutic efficacy compared to conventional therapy. The focus of this review is to provide an overview of various nanoparticle formulations in both research and clinical applications with a focus on various chemotherapeutic drug delivery systems for the treatment of cancer. The use of various nanoparticles, including liposomes, polymeric nanoparticles, dendrimers, magnetic and other inorganic nanoparticles for targeted drug delivery in cancer is detailed.

Nanocarriers for cancer-targeted drug delivery.

The growing research interest in nanomedicine for the treatment of cancer and inflammatory-related pathologies is yielding encouraging results. Unfortunately, enthusiasm is tempered by the limited specificity of the enhanced permeability and retention effect. Factors such as lack of cellular specificity, low vascular density, and early release of active agents prior to reaching their target contribute to the limitations of the enhanced permeability and retention effect. However, improved nanomedicine designs are creating opportunities to overcome these problems. In this review, we present examples of the advances made in this field and endeavor to highlight the potential of these emerging technologies to improve targeting of nanomedicine to specific pathological cells and tissues.

/pdf/nanomedicine-for-drug-targeting-strategies-beyond-the-1y94fotgna.pdf

Laura Domanovitch

Papers

Nanomedicine for drug targeting: strategies beyond the enhanced permeability and retention effect.