NanoMed Pharmaceuticals, Nanobac, Nanogen, Nanotrope. The prefix "nano" is very trend for the start-up of the world of health. Certainly it's an effect of fashion to flatter the taste of the technological novelty among investors on the lookout for a good stock shot. But it also reflects the emergence of a new promising discipline: biological agents capable of administering drugs with the precision of a microscopic cruise missile. These vectors know find their way in an organization. They are able to identify, mark or destroy selected cellular targets, in avoiding the traps strained by the immune system. The forum that opens Monday in Zurich confirmed the rise of this medicine.
Nanotechnology applied to the life sciences have now their lounges, specialized journals, a professional association and even a network of "business angels" specific. In the United States, this sector is facing a frenzied agitation in industrial research and academic actors. Universities are engaged a fierce competition to qualify for public funding and position themselves for the enviable status of reference centre. For their part, the pharmacy industry prepare without too say a new conceptual revolution. This enthusiasm is based on exaggerated forecasts. The market overall of nanomedicine, estimated at 900 million dollars in 2005, could reach 3.4 billion in 2010. An annual growth of 30 per year! The applications cover a wide field of products: innovative medicines, labeling of cells, early diagnosis.
Last year, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) has identified a budget of $ 144.5 million intended to finance applications of nanoparticles in oncology. A network of 7 centres of excellence will be established in the United States to coordinate academic work. Selected projects will cover the new molecules and technologies for the early identification of tumor cells. Last month, Nasa granted a loan of $ 600,000 to Nanotrope firm which is the issue of drugs as microscopic droplets. This mode of administration which allows a more precise dosage of the drugs concerned space for long-duration missions. According to a recent survey, 700 business or study centres are concerned by the "nanobiotechs". But, for most of the experts, this work is exploratory. It will have to wait ten years to get significant applications.
According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, nanomedicine is one of the 10 emerging technologies. The work of the University of Michigan confirmed the power and the complexity of this concept. A team of researchers has developed a family of vehicles (of Dendrimers) holders of a molecule-poison (folic acid). This crew binds to specific receptors in cancer cells, penetrates inside and destroys. Instead of the drug, the vector can carry a detectable light emitting molecule imaging techniques. This trick is then to identify tumor cells wandering originally metastasis circulating in an organization. James Baker, the researcher at the origin of these work plans to create a family of "payloads" associated with the missile base.
Improve medical imaging
Detect diseases before the onset of clinical signs is an old dream of doctor. Recent experiments on animals show that is closer to that goal. By injecting nanoparticles in a mouse, Ohio State University researchers measured the concentration of these substances in the liver by ultrasound imaging techniques (ultrasound). Behind this manipulation lies a project for early detection of invisible cell clusters with existing techniques. An approach that could be used for breast cancer.
Nanoparticles are also a solution to cross the barrier which protects the brain of toxic molecules (bloodbrain barrier). This natural filter prohibited the passage in the cerebrospinal fluid of the molecules "unknown to the battalion. Several European teams are working on techniques to bypass this barrier using hybrid nanoparticles. Researchers at the Goethe University of Frankfurt have created a complex comprising particles of a common protein (albumin) as a carrier of a pain reliever. These tests (on the mouse) have been declared positive by the German team.
In Switzerland, there is interest in the iron oxide particles associated with specific molecules that interact with neurons. According to researchers at the University of Lausanne, biocompatible compound (always mice) could improve the quality of medical imaging equipment including used to treat cancers of the brain. Scientists from the University of Texas have imagined an another ploy to smoothly enter the central nervous system. They used to star in the world of the infinitely small: carbon nanotubes. These hollow microscopic windings can carry an electrical charge and therefore enable a neuron. Ten thousand times smaller than a human hair, these ultra-solides compounds are developed all by specialists. American researchers have used one of their characteristics: they are conductors of electricity. According to them, a carpet made from these microcomponents could serve as a liaison between the living and the inert transmitting electrical signals from one (carpet) to another (the neurons). Cells of rat placed under these conditions have, apparently, confirmed the correctness of the concept. Researchers are now trying to operate the system in the other direction. With these applications, it enters another world, that of the nanobioélectronique.
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