Nanotechnology Beyond the Antibiosis

Abstract

The antibiotic era must pass to another stage if it wants to overcome antimicrobial resistance; this new phase or group of medications must have the ability to avoid the emergence of resistance while controlling infectious disease without altering the host’s microbiome. In this order of ideas, the design and development of symbiotic medications such as those containing prebiotic, probiotic, and postbiotic metabolites are of great importance for the move toward a new antimicrobial model that takes symbiosis into account more than antibiosis, as a primary therapeutic target and that seeks to restore interactions between host and symbionts as part of the healing process. Thus, to implement this new approach, the available pharmacological tools are required in order to gain access to the largest number of host microbiome species in order to develop multisystemic therapies that prevent dysbiosis, chronic inflammation, and other conditions such as cancer. Based on the foregoing, the objective of this chapter is to conduct a survey regarding modern nanoantimicrobials as part of a new symbiotic approach where the therapeutic target is the microbiome and its interactions, in order to modulate the restoration of both the immune system and the neuroendocrine.