Therapeutic Nanodevices

Abstract

A review. Therapeutic nanotechnol. offers minimally invasive therapies with high densities of function concd. in small vols., features that may reduce patient morbidity and mortality. Unlike other areas of nanotechnol., novel phys. properties assocd. with nanoscale dimensionality are not the raison d'etre of therapeutic nanotechnol., whereas the aggregation of multiple biochem. (or comparably precise) functions into controlled nanoarchitectures is. Multifunctionality is a hallmark of emerging nanotherapeutic devices, and multifunctionality can allow nanotherapeutic devices to perform multistep work processes, with each functional component contributing to one or more nanodevice subroutine such that, in aggregate, subroutines sum to a cogent work process. Cannonical nanotherapeutic subroutines include tethering (targeting) to sites of disease, dispensing measured doses of drug (or bioactive compd.), detection of residual disease after therapy and communication with an external clinician/opertor. Emerging nanotherapeutics thus blur the boundaries between medical devices and traditional pharmaceuticals. Assembly of therapeutic nanodevices generally exploits either (bio)material self-assembly properties or chemoselective bioconjugation techniques, or both. Given the complexity, compn., and the necessity for their tight chem. and structural definition inherent in the nature of nanotherapeutics, their cost of goods (COGs) might exceed that of (already expensive) biologics. Early therapeutic nanodevices will likely be applied to disease states which exhibit significant unmet patient need (cancer and cardiovascular disease), while application to other disease states well-served by conventional therapy may await perfection of nanotherapeutic design and assembly protocols. [on SciFinder(R)]