Enabling individualized therapy through nanotechnology

Abstract

Individualized medicine is the healthcare strategy that rebukes the idiomatic dogma of ‘losing sight of the forest for the trees’. We are entering a new era of healthcare where it is no longer acceptable to develop and market a drug that is effective for only 80% of the patient population. The emergence of “-omic” technologies (e.g. genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics) and advances in systems biology are magnifying the deficiencies of standardized therapy, which often provide little treatment latitude for accommodating patient physiologic idiosyncrasies. A personalized approach to medicine is not a novel concept. Ever since the scientific community began unraveling the mysteries of the genome, the promise of discarding generic treatment regimens in favor of patient-specific therapies became more feasible and realistic. One of the major scientific impediments of this movement towards personalized medicine has been the need for technological enablement. Nanotechnology is projected to play a critical role in patient-specific therapy; however, this transition will depend heavily upon the evolutionary development of a systems biology approach to clinical medicine based upon “-omic” technology analysis and integration. This manuscript provides a forward looking assessment of the promise of nanomedicine as it pertains to individualized medicine and establishes a technology “snapshot” of the current state of nano-based products over a vast array of clinical indications and range of patient specificity. Other issues such as market driven hurdles and regulatory compliance reform are anticipated to “self-correct” in accordance to scientific advancement and healthcare demand. These peripheral, non-scientific concerns are not addressed at length in this manuscript; however they do exist, and their impact to the paradigm shifting healthcare transformation towards individualized medicine will be critical for its success.

Implantable microchip: the futuristic controlled drug delivery system

“…Many researchers have been reported that, implantable drug delivery systems can be divided into two classes (Figure 3; Grayson et al, 2003;Staples et al, 2006;Nisar et al, 2008;Receveur et al, 2007;Daniel et al, 2009;Sakamoto et al, 2010;Stevenson et al, 2012) (a) Active device or solid-state silicon microchip -controlled drug releasing system after implantation using mechanical, electrical, magnetic, laser or other means. (b) Passive device or resorbable polymeric microchip -predetermined drug releasing system by the materials, fabrication methods or drug formulation and cannot be controlled after implantation.…”

Peptide-Based Polymer Therapeutics

“…Finally, it is important to note that first examples with polymer conjugates show that the panacea of enabling specific and individualised therapy through nanomedicine is becoming a feasible approach and polypeptidic carriers are major players in this role [43,44].…”

Personalized Medicine: State-of-the-Art and Prospects

“…Среди протеомных методов, перспективных для персонализированной медицины, следует отметить белковые биочипы, на которых иммобилизованы связы-вающие белки -антигены, антитела, ферменты [33], масс-спектрометрическую визуализацию тканей чело-века, или имиджинг [35,39], и некоторые др. [40].…”