(Nat) Pitchaya Chairuengjitjaras

5929640141
MD211
Nanomedicine - the use of nanotechnology in medicine

In the plenary session II, Prof. Andrew Owen had given a lecture upon Nanotechnology-Enabled
drug delivery, which was very fascinating. He illustrated how nanotechnology could change the
face of pharmaceutical and medical industry.

Nanoscience usually refers to science related to research or technology at the scale of 100
nanometre or smaller. One of the growing area of nanotechnology is nanomedicine, which National
Instutute of Health has given as "highly specific medical intervention at the molecular scale for
diagnosis, prevention and treatment of diseases". Nanomedicine contributes highly to specific drug
delivery for both diagnostic and treatment. Nanotechnology enables function programming through
manipulation of molecules' structure.

The highly specific drug have various advantages as the drug could be targeted precisely to the
desired location, which would reduce side effects, and would be especially beneficial in treating
cancer as the drug could target directly to cancerous cells, not interfering with the function of the
normal cells. Other advantages include the ability to overcome blood brain barrier and the delivery
of appropriate amount of drug, maximising therapeutic efficacy and minimise toxicity. Additionally,
the professor also gave a case of pediatric HIV drug, Kaletra, which is composed of 40% ethyl
alchol and 15% anti-freeze (propyl glycol) , which is not entirely safe for children. In this case, The
nanomedicine could avoid the use of alcohol and antifreeze in Kaletra, offering a safer alternative
for younger patients.

During the lecture, Prof. Owen had illustrated various properties of nanodrugs, one of the
fascinating property is that the substance molecules, when dissolved in solution in water, is
indistinguishable despite its insolubility in water. The prof told that although the substance seems to
be soluble, actually the substance exists as small suspension floating all over the liquid. Since the
molecule size is extremely small, naked eye can not distinguish the substance from water. Also, the
small molecule size means that the gravitational force pulling the molecules is very weak, the
substance would form clumps much slower. Also, the ability to produce small molecules would
increase drugs exposure of tissues, due to an increase in surface area of drugs.

The future of nanomedicine seems promising, but there are still some challenges on this pathway.
Currently, the understanding of interaction between biological artifacts and biological environment
is poor, hence, the artifacts administered to the body could cause unexpected side effects. Also,
some researches have found that nanoparticles administered could accumulate in the liver, and
might lead to permanent damage. Another research also discovered that high concentration of
nanoparticles stimulate the transformation of normal cells to tumour, leading to cancer.
Additionally, the time taken for drugs to be in clinical use is inevitably long, it would take
approximately 15 years for the whole process, starting from preclinical research to approval by
FDA.

Although, the pathway of implementing nanomedicine in clinical use is prominently challenging,

unexpected complications continues to show up, requiring deeper researches and more evidence to
prove drugs' safety. Nanomedicine is still a promising area, as it introduces new opportunities to
cure severe or even current-incurable diseases, the technology would definitely be in the future
clinical use.