Materials Science World Congress

New, more effective solutions that increase the efficiency and precision of treatments will revolutionize precision medicine by nanomaterials. Nanoscale size makes it have properties and characteristics through which it can be exploited to mimic biological systems in terms of their functions or interact at molecular and cellular levels, thus finding an ideal role for targeted drug delivery, diagnostics, and individualized therapies.

Targeted drug delivery is the most prominent application of nanomaterials in precision medicine. Most treatments in the past had drugs dispensed in a nonspecific manner whereby they would affect both the diseased and healthy cells with undesirable side effects. Nanomaterials can be designed to deliver therapeutic agents directly to the diseased cells thus proving far more effective treatment with virtually no harmful side effects. For example, ligands can be attached to nanoparticles in order to realize selective delivery of drugs onto cancer cells. Such functionalization enables medication to bypass healthy tissues and concentrate its activity on the tumor. This technique appears to be highly promising for oncology where the specificity of drug influence upon cancer cells might prove decisive for the outcome for a patient.

Along with the targeted delivery of drugs, nanomaterials are revolutionizing diagnostics in precision medicine. Disease diagnosis at its very onset is more sensitive and precise with nanotechnology. As an example, for the detection of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, neurodegenerative conditions, among others, biosensors can be developed from nanomaterials to detect biomarkers from the blood or any other fluid. As a result of detecting diseases at the earliest, interventions occur much before that, thus practicing precision medicine.

Third, nanomaterials will enable the tailoring of treatments to each individual based on his or her genetic makeup, lifestyle, and specific environment. Nanotechnology will allow clinicians to engineer the treatment to be targeted to the molecular characteristics of a patient's disease. The horizon is not so far off that diseases such as cancers and genetic disorders may well have one-size fits-all treatments greatly impacted.

Yet another area of application is in gene therapy. Here, the nanomaterial could be used as a carrier for genetic material where the hope is that the material targets specific cells with the hope of correcting defective genes in the treatment of inherited disorders.

Nanomaterials are opening new avenues into precision medicine toward targeted, efficient, and safe treatments. This technology ranges from targeted drug delivery systems to enhanced diagnostics and holds great promise for revolutionizing health care as one step closer to better patient outcomes and improved management of diseases.