Nanotech drug delivery vehicles may soon improve because it
turns out that even those that appear to be promising are not
well-designed. In a Nanowerk Spotlight Michael Berger reports
work from nanomedicine pioneer Mauro Ferrari on how to improve
the design of nanoparticles for drug delivery. From
“Mathematical engines of nanomedicine“: …Although nanotechnology
offers great visions of improved, personalized treatment of
disease, at the same time it renders the problem of selecting
the candidates for biological testing astronomically more
complex. The new notion of ‘design maps’ for nanovectors —
similar to the concept of the periodic table for chemical
elements — could provide guidance for the development of
optimized injectable nanocarriers through mathematical modeling.
“The number of potential combinatorial variations that can be
developed by choosing different nanoparticle core materials,
targeting moieties, and payload molecules is very large” Prof.
Mauro Ferrari tells Nanowerk. “It is easy to compile a