One topic that I have not been able to avoid in the past couple of years is that of Nanotechnology. This is a technology that has the potential to impact many of the most important areas and has already had a massive effect on fields such as drug delivery. It is a versatile technology and I hope that this has been illustrated by some recent articles from the pages of Drug Discovery Today, touching upon (as I mentioned) the delivery of anticancer agents, but also how they might impact both diagnosis and treatment of neurological disorders and finally a more clinical application of the technology to the treatment of cancer. The field of nanotechnology sprang from the labs of the material scientist, it now occupies central stage in many pharmaceutical organisations and we cannot overlook its contribution to the development of a number of the vaccines currently being used (or soon to be available) for COVID-19.
The first article, from Mahdi Zeinali, Soheil Abbaspour-Ravasjani, Marjan Ghorbani, Afshin Babazadeh, Tannaz Soltanfam, Ana Cláudia Santos, Hamed Hamishehkar and Michael R. Hamblin
entitled: “Nanovehicles for co-delivery of anticancer agents” highlights how the use of nanovehicular technology for the delivery of multiple anti-cancer agents can produce a synergy, in addition to reducing toxicity, side effects and multi-drug resistance.
In the second article, “Evolving nanoformulation strategies for diagnosis and clinical interventions for Parkinson’s disease” by Sunita Chawla, Dnyaneshwar Kalyane, Vishakha Tambe, Pran Kishore Deb, Kiran Kalia and Rakesh K. Tekade. The authors describe how diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease can be improved through the use of innovative nanoformulation strategies and how the subsequent early treatment with nanomedicines can have a much improved, targeted approach to disease treatment with higher efficacy and reduced side effects.
Last, but by no means least, is the article from Mohammad Norouzi, Mehrnaz Amerian, Mahshid Amerian and Fatemeh Atyabi, which expands upon the discussion from the first article and is entitled: “Clinical applications of nanomedicine in cancer therapy”. This article further expounds the benefits of nanomedicine in cancer, improving patient survival and outcome in addition to significantly reducing the systemic effects of conventional chemotherapeutic approaches.
Steve Carney was born in Liverpool, England and studied Biochemistry at Liverpool University, obtaining a BSc.(Hons) and then read for a PhD on the Biochemistry and Pathology of Connective Tissue Diseases in Manchester University, in the Departments of Medical Biochemistry and Histopathology. On completion of his PhD he moved to the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, London, where he worked with Professor Helen Muir FRS and Professor Tim Hardingham, on the biochemistry of experimental Osteoarthritis. He joined Eli Lilly and Co. and held a number of positions in Biology R&D, initially in the Connective Tissue Department, but latterly in the Neuroscience Department. He left Lilly to take up his present position as Managing Editor, Drug Discovery Today, at Elsevier. Currently, he also holds an honorary lectureship in Drug Discovery at the University of Surrey, UK. He has authored over 50 articles in peer-reviewed journals, written several book chapters and has held a number of patents.