Nanotechnology in the Medical Field
Nanotechnology is an emerging technology in which several researchers worldwide are involved. Nanotechnology gives a surprising insight into an atom and a molecule. It observes the atoms and molecules in 1 to 100 nanometres, one-billionth of a metre. If we compare with a scale, 50,000 to 100,000-nanometer scale atoms can fit into the human hair, showing that nanoscale size is unimaginably tiny.
Studying this technology is associated with many fields, including the pharmaceutical industry, material science, medicine, and engineering. One of the fields that are vastly emerging and currently gathering momentum is drug delivery and therapy.
Nanomedicine
There has been a vast improvement in the medical field with the application of nanotechnology. It enhances the quality of diagnosis, treatment, drug delivery, radiotherapy and many more.
The application of nanotechnology in drug delivery:
In a drug delivery of nanoparticles, supramolecular chemistry plays a vital role in spontaneously designing and manipulating molecular assemblies and structures at the nanoscale. Supramolecular interaction is the non-covalent interaction between the molecules to assemble specific molecules. Non-covalent interactions include Van-der-Waals forces, hydrogen bonding, London dispersion, pi-pi stacking, metal-ligand interaction, electrostatic interactions, and host-guest chemistry. These are all non-covalent interactions.
During the supramolecular self-assemblies, it undergoes spontaneous stages of transforming the disordered structure of the molecule into an ordered system by having local interactions between the components without any external force. In the image shown below, the disordered arrangement of a solution becomes more organised after the self-assembly.
The host-guest interaction must be appropriately processed in self-assembly to form an ordered product. Host-guest chemistry is an idea where molecules assemble each other by having the non-covalent interaction of binding between the host and the guest molecule. Host molecules tend to be bigger than the guest molecules. Host molecules introduce a particular binding site shape and interact with the guest molecules. One well-known example of host-guest interaction is the binding of a drug molecule corresponding to guest molecules to a receptor or enzymes that function as a host in the human body. This concept of host-guest interaction plays a crucial role in producing efficient drugs for humans in day-to-day life.
Application of Nano-medicine
There are multiple applications of nanoparticles in drug delivery. The most developed area is curing cancer and ocular and neurodegenerative diseases. The most fascinating and unsolved disease that needs to be solved is Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of dementia, and 62% of people in the UK have been affected. In addition to that, the payments which dementia patients have to pay are almost 8.3 billion GBP.
When the concept of nanomedicine engages in drug delivery, understanding the structure of nanoparticles and how they store the drug is essential for drug delivery efficiency in the targeted area. The most common nanoparticles used in drug delivery are lipid nanoparticles. Lipid nanoparticles are well-known for being biodegradable, biocompatible, non-toxicity and non-immunogenic. Other polymeric and metallic nano-carriers are toxic to some parts of the human body, including the lungs, kidneys, and central nervous system.
Written by Yunseo Lee
