Strategic workshops on cancer nanotechnology.

Nanotechnology offers the potential for new approaches to detecting, treating, and preventing cancer. To determine the current status of the cancer nanotechnology field and the optimal path forward, the National Cancer Institute's Alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer held three strategic workshops, covering the areas of in vitro diagnostics and prevention, therapy and post-treatment, and in vivo diagnosis and imaging. At each of these meetings, a wide range of experts from academia, industry, the nonprofit sector, and the U.S. government discussed opportunities in the field of cancer nanotechnology and barriers to its implementation.

Factors affecting the clearance and biodistribution of polymeric nanoparticles.

Nanoparticle (NP) drug delivery systems (5-250 nm) have the potential to improve current disease therapies because of their ability to overcome multiple biological barriers and releasing a therapeutic load in the optimal dosage range. Rapid clearance of circulating nanoparticles during systemic delivery is a critical issue for these systems and has made it necessary to understand the factors affecting particle biodistribution and blood circulation half-life. In this review, we discuss the factors which can influence nanoparticle blood residence time and organ specific accumulation. These factors include interactions with biological barriers and tunable nanoparticle parameters, such as composition, size, core properties, surface modifications (pegylation and surface charge), and finally, targeting ligand functionalization. All these factors have been shown to substantially affect the biodistribution and blood circulation half-life of circulating nanoparticles by reducing the level of nonspecific uptake, delaying opsonization, and increasing the extent of tissue specific accumulation.

Nanotechnology for cancer diagnostics: promises and challenges.

Despite recent progress in the treatment of cancer, the majority of cases are still diagnosed only after tumors have metastasized, leaving the patient with a grim prognosis. However, there may be an opportunity to drastically reduce the burden of cancer, if the disease can be detected early enough. Nanotechnology is in a unique position to transform cancer diagnostics and to produce a new generation of biosensors and medical imaging techniques with higher sensitivity and precision of recognition. This review examines the in vitro and in vivo diagnostic applications of nanoparticles, and other nanodevices that are likely to have an impact on the field in the future. Future developments that may lead to the realization of multifunctional detection and treatment nanoparticle platforms are also discussed.