Unique benefits of nanotechnology to drug delivery and diagnostics

Nanotechnology offers many potential benefits to medical research by making pharmaceuticals more efficacious and by decreasing their adverse side-effects. Preclinical characterization of nanoparticles intended for medical applications is complicated--due to the variety of materials used, their unique surface properties and multifunctional nature. This chapter serves as an introduction to the volume, giving a broad overview of applications of nanotechnology to medicine, and describes some of the beneficial aspects of nanotechnology-based drug delivery. We define nanotechnology and provide brief descriptions of the major classes of nanomaterials used for medical applications. The following two chapters discuss scientific and regulatory hurdles involved in the use of nanotechnology in medicine. The remaining bulk of the volume provides the reader with protocols that have been tested against clinically relevant nanoparticles and describes some of the nuances of nanoparticle types and necessary controls.