Search results for " nanocarrier"
showing 10 items of 16 documents
Expanding the Therapeutic Spectrum of Artemisinin: Activity Against Infectious Diseases Beyond Malaria and Novel Pharmaceutical Developments
2016
The interest of Western medicine in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) as a source of drug leads/new drugs to treat diseases without available efficient therapies has been dramatically augmented in the last decades by the extensive work and the outstanding findings achieved within this kind of medicine. The practice of TCM over thousands of years has equipped scientists with substantial experience with hundreds of plants that led to the discovery of artemisinin (qinghaosu), which is extracted from the medicinal plant Artemisia annua L. (qinghao). The unexpected success of artemisinin in combating malaria has drawn strong attention from the scientific community towards TCM. Artemisinin was d…
Radiation-engineered functionalized nanogels as platform for biomedical nanocarriers and bio-hybrid, hierarchically assembled nanostructures
2011
Radiation technologies can be considered as choice methodologies for the creation of new functional materials at the nanoscale, the challenge being now the integration of these and other novel nanomaterials into new materials and products. The possibility of generating nanoscalar PVP-based hydrogels particles, with reactive functional groups for subsequent bioconjugation, using industrial type accelerators has been demonstrated. These functional nanoparticles are under evaluation as nanocarriers for targeted release of drugs, but can also be considered as useful building blocks for the assembly of nanostructured materials with controlled architecture. In particular, molecular recognition st…
Controlling the Stealth Effect of Nanocarriers through Understanding the Protein Corona
2016
The past decade has seen a significant increase in interest in the use of polymeric nanocarriers in medical applications. In particular, when used as drug vectors in targeted delivery, nanocarriers could overcome many obstacles for drug therapy. Nevertheless, their application is still impeded by the complex composition of the blood proteins covering the particle surface, termed the protein corona. The protein corona complicates any prediction of cell interactions, biodistribution, and toxicity. In particular, the unspecific uptake of nanocarriers is a major obstacle in clinical studies. This Minireview provides an overview of what we currently know about the characteristics of the protein …
Nanocarriers for respiratory diseases treatment: Recent advances and current challenges
2014
Pulmonary delivery of locally-acting drugs encapsulated in nanocarriers provides several advantages for the treatment of respiratory diseases such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases, cystic fibrosis, tuberculosis and lung cancer. These advantages include, among others, sustained drug delivery to the lungs, reduced therapeutic dose and improved patient compliance. The aim of this review is to give an updated overview on recent advances recorded in the last few years in this field as well as on the major challenges still existing and that remain to be overcome before any clinical application. After an outline on the cellular and extracellular barriers affecting drug delivery to…
High energy radiation processing for the synthesis of insulin nanocarriers for the development of a new strategy for the treatment of Alzheimer's Dis…
2016
Nanogels are nanoscalar polymeric networks, characterized by a dynamic internal structure and a flexible adaptive shape. When they are used as drug carriers, their flexibility and shape changing ability can facilitate the bypass of biological barriers, ensure protection of the payload and enable interaction of any attached ligand with its receptors. Poly(N-vinyl pyrrolidone)-co-acrylic acid nanogels (NGs) have been produced by ebeam irradiation of diluted aqueous solutions of a water-soluble polymer in the presence of a small amount of acrylic acid. In particular, industrial accelerators and the typical set-ups and doses applied for sterilization have been used. [1, 2] Particle size, molecu…
Polymeric Nanocarriers for Magnetic Targeted Drug Delivery: Preparation, Characterization, and in Vitro and in Vivo Evaluation
2013
In this paper the preparation of magnetic nano- carriers (MNCs), containing superparamagnetic domains, is reported, useful as potential magnetically targeted drug delivery systems. The preparation of MNCs was performed by using the PHEA-IB-p(BMA) graft copolymer as coating material through the homogenization−solvent evaporation method. Magnetic and nonmagnetic nanocarriers containing flutamide (FLU-MNCs) were prepared. The prepared nanocarriers have been exhaustively characterized by dynamic light scattering (DLS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and magnetic measurements. Biological evaluation was performed by in vitro cytotoxicity and cell uptake tests and in vivo biodistribution …
Densely PEGylated polybenzofulvene brushes for potential applications in drug encapsulation
2018
The technique of grafting side chains onto a linear polymeric backbone is commonly used to confer to the new polymeric material with desired properties, such as tunable solubility, ionic charge, biocompatibility, or specific interactions with biological systems. In this paper, two new polybenzofulvene backbones were assembled by spontaneous polymerization of the appropriate benzofulvene monomers (4,6-PO-BF3k and 4&rsquo
Versatile preparation of silica nanocapsules for biomedical applications
2020
Core–shell nanocapsules are receiving increasing interest for drug delivery applications. Silica nanocapsules have been the focus of intensive studies due to their biocompatibility, versatile silica chemistry, and tunable porosity. However, a versatile one-step preparation of silica nanocapsules with well-defined core–shell structure, tunable size, flexible interior loading, and tailored shell composition, permeability, and surface functionalization for site-specific drug release and therapeutic tracking remains a challenge. Herein, an interfacially confined sol–gel process in miniemulsion for the one-step versatile preparation of functional silica nanocapsules is developed. Uniform nanocap…
Ionizing radiation-engineered nanogels as insulin nanocarriers for the development of a new strategy for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease
2016
A growing body of evidence shows the protective role of insulin in Alzheimer's disease (AD). A nanogel system (NG) to deliver insulin to the brain, as a tool for the development of a new therapy for Alzheimer's Disease (AD), is designed and synthetized. A carboxyl-functionalized poly(N-vinyl pyrrolidone) nanogel system produced by ionizing radiation is chosen as substrate for the covalent attachment of insulin or fluorescent molecules relevant for its characterization. Biocompatibility and hemocompatibility of the naked carrier is demonstrated. The insulin conjugated to the NG (NG-In) is protected by protease degradation and able to bind to insulin receptor (IR), as demonstrated by immunofl…
Polymeric nanoparticles as a new generation of anti-oxidant carriers
2016
In recent years, polymeric nanoparticles have been the object of growing scientific interest, especially as drug carriers. In this work, PEO-PPO-PEO (F127, commercial Pluronic F127®) nanoparticles has been used as carriers for naturally occurring anti-oxidant, such as quercetin (Q).