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Frontiers of Engineering Reports on Leading-Edge Engineering from the 2018 Symposium (2019) / Chapter Skim
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Developing Targeted Theranostic Nanoparticles: Challenges and Potential Solutions - Andrew Tsourkas
Pages 77-82

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From page 77...
... Because of the body's rapid clearance of small-molecule drugs, high doses are needed to achieve a therapeutic effect, but since drugs perfuse both diseased and healthy tissue, there can be undesirable effects in the ­atter. Small-molecule drugs are also often associated l with broad mechanisms of action, which can disrupt unintended cellular pathways.
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From page 78...
... Longer circulation times are also generally associated with reduced toxicity to organs involved in drug excretion (e.g., the kidney and liver) , because of slower accumulation in these organs and a lower maximum drug concentration at any given time.
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From page 79...
... Use of the Tumor Microenvironment One strategy being tested to overcome the high variability and instability of cancer cells involves taking advantage of cues in the tumor microenvironment to promote nanoparticle retention in tumors. For example, numerous nanoparticles have been developed to be retained in tumors in response to the acidic tumor microenvironment, matrix-metalloproteinases, hypoxia, binding of stromal cells, and other factors common to most tumor types (Du et al.
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From page 80...
... , but its use is limited to superficial tumors. Recent work shows that alternating magnetic fields can be used to spatially target the heating of magnetic nanoparticles and trigger drug release from thermally responsive nanoparticles (Tay et al.
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From page 81...
... 2007. Decreased circulation time offsets increased efficacy of PEGylated nanocarriers targeting folate receptors of ­ lioma.
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From page 82...
... Nature Reviews Materials 1:16014. Wong C, Stylianopoulos T, Cui J, Martin J, Chauhan VP, Jiang W, Popović Z, Jain RK, Bawendi MG, Fukumura D
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Key Terms

  • tumor microenvironment
  • death rate
  • drug release
  • acs nano
  • physical triggers

  • extracellular matrix
  • targeted theranostic
  • cancer cells
  • breast cancer
  • drug delivery

  • antigen expression
  • thermally responsive
  • vascular permeability
  • stromal cells
  • therapeutic effect

  • blood vessels
  • circulation times
  • circulation time
  • promote drug
  • cancer chemotherapeutics

  • maximum drug
  • promote nanoparticle
  • treating cancer
  • drug efficacy
  • enhance drug

  • therapeutic nanoparticles
  • synergistic therapeutic
  • drug excretion
  • tumor targeting
  • nanoparticle dose


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