Proceedings Article | 17 November 2005
S. Sridhar, M. Amiji, D. Shenoy, D. Nagesha, V. Weissig, W. Fu
KEYWORDS: Nanoparticles, Magnetism, Polymers, Gold, Tumors, Particles, Nanomedicine, Iron, Microwave radiation, Magnetic resonance imaging
Nanotechnology offers unique approaches to probe and control a variety of biological and medical processes that occur at nanometer length scales, and is expected to have a revolutionary impact on biology1 and medicine2. Nanomedicine is a new paradigm that seeks to exploit the use of nanotechnology in medicine. Among the various approaches within the nanomedicine paradigm, nanoparticles and nanotemplates offer some unique advantages as sensing, diagnostic, delivery, and image enhancement agents3,4. Several varieties of nanoparticles5 are available: polymeric nanoparticles6, metal nanoparticles7, liposomes8, micelles, quantum dots, dendrimers, magnetic nanoparticles9, and nanoassemblies10,11. All of these nanoparticles can play a major role in medicine, and especially in diagnosis and therapy of cancer12,13,14, cardiovascular diseases, and infectious diseases. To further the application of nanoparticles in disease diagnosis and therapy, it is important that the systems are stable, capable of being functionalized, biocompatible, and directed to specific target sites in the body after systemic administration. In this short review we discuss four areas of research carried out by the Nanomedicine Consortium using nanoparticles and nanotemplates to explore new approaches in nanotechnology for medical diagnosis, imaging and therapy.
