Diagnostic and Therapeutic Nanomedicine

Nanotechnology has been widely applied to medical interventions for prevention, diagnostics, and therapeutics of diseases, and the application of nanotechnology for medical purposes, which is called as a term "nanomedicine" has received tremendous attention. In particular, the design and development of nanoparticle for biosensors have received a great deal of attention, since those are most impactful area of clinical translation showing potential breakthrough in early diagnosis of diseases such as cancers and infections. For example, the nanoparticles that have intrinsic unique features such as magnetic responsive characteristics or photoluminescence can be utilized for noninvasive visualization of inner body. Drug delivery that makes use of drug-containing nanoparticles as a carrier is another field of study, in which the particulate form nanomedicine is given by parenteral administration for further systemic targeting to pathological tissues. In addition, encapsulation into nanoparticles gives the opportunity to secure the sensitive therapeutic payloads that are readily degraded or deactivated until reached to the target in biological environments, or to provide sufficient solubilization (e.g., to deliver compounds which have physicochemical properties that strongly limit their aqueous solubility and therefore systemic bioavailability). The nanomedicine is further intended to enhance the targeting index such as increased specificity and reduced false binding, thus improve the diagnostic and therapeutic performances. In this chapter, principles of nanomaterials for medicine will be thoroughly covered with applications for imaging-based diagnostics and therapeutics.