Miniature Medicine: Nanobiomaterials for therapeutic delivery and cell engineering applications

The 21st century has embraced miniaturization and witnessed the emergence of multidisciplinary nanotechnology in the medical field, popularly known as nanomedicine. It has long been established that chronic infections such as hepatitis and malaria, as well as diseases such as cancer and arthritis, are diverse, complex, and heterogeneous, wherein patients do not respond identically to the same spectrum of drugs. Traditional bolus delivery of biotherapeutics offers medical practitioners limited control over dosage, tissue distribution, and bioavailability in vivo. Many therapeutic agents, particularly chemotherapy drugs such as Paclitaxel, are highly toxic to the body, and therefore, limited dosage can be administered in a patient. Similarly, soluble protein growth factors have limited potential to penetrate cell membrane barriers to transform the functioning and fate of cells. Consequently, the effective delivery of biotherapeutics is a major goal of current biomaterial-based strategies.