Therapeutic nanomedicine: Polymeric nanosystems for drug and gene delivery (original) (raw)

2008, European Journal of Nanomedicine

Therapeutic nanomedicine introduction Despite remarkable progress in the past century, acute and chronic diseases such as bacterial and viral infections, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and debilitating CNS diseases continue to take a significant toll around the world. Various types of drug and gene therapy strategies are currently employed for the treatment of diseases based on differences between the normal and pathological tissue. Those differences can be subtle and in remote areas of the body at the organ, tissue, cell, or sub-cellular levels (1-5). As pathological knowledge is leading to the molecular distinction between normal and abnormal tissue, it is predicted that more therapeutic targets will emerge at the cellular, sub-cellular, and at molecular levels (6). In the case of cancer, for instance, the angiogenic process that leads to recruitment of a blood supply from surrounding vessels is extremely important for growth and spreading of cancer cells, a process known as metastasis, to other parts of the body (7). Metastasis is the cause of more than 80% of cancer-related deaths (8). In addition, as the solid tumor begins to grow, the blood supply is confined largely to the periphery and does not permeate to the interior of the mass. Lack of blood supply to the core of a tumor results in