Marco Giardiello1
University of Liverpool1
Nanomedicine represents one of the fastest growing fields of research in recent years, encompassing both therapeutic and diagnostic medicine. Global impacts across several wide-ranging disease conditions have been achieved, for example Doxil/Caelyx and Myocet for cancer chemotherapy, Macugen for macular degeneration, Fosrenol for renal disease and Endorem for magnetic resonance imaging. Critically, all advances in nanomedicine are driven by material development on the nanoscale, with many applications established through fundamental research and design of novel nanomaterials. Thus, in order to discover next generation technologies, next generation nanomaterials must be developed.<br/>The success of current clinical nanomedicine is borne out of advances in both inorganic and organic nanomaterials. The Inorganic/Organic Nanocomposite Particles (I/O-NP) platform technology is composed of organic, polymeric nanoparticles that incorporate and functionalise various inorganic nanoparticles. The aim is to harness the versatility of both inorganic nanoparticle (I-NP) and organic nanoparticle (O-NP) technologies to develop a highly versatile platform with multiple opportunities in varied healthcare applications possible through variation in nanocomposite structure and composition. Through advanced materials design and collaborative research approaches, the scientific objective is to apply the versatility of the I/O-NP platform across several emerging healthcare applications, both diagnostic and therapeutic. Herein an overview of synthetic approaches towards composite material developments aimed at several healthcare applications will be presented:<br/>1. Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticle based tracers for Magnetic Particle Imaging (MPI)<br/>2. Gold nanoparticle based radiosensitisers for Proton Beam Therapy<br/>3. Lanthanide Upconversion Nanoparticles as Optical Imaging Probes<br/>4. Polymeric nanocomposites as theranostic agents for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)