Some forecasts have predicted the nanotechnology market to reach close to a trillion dollars by 2015, presenting investors with unique opportunities. However, the market for applications of nanotechnology is complex, multidisciplinary and highly segmented. It is therefore essential to gain an understanding of which market sectors nanotechnology is likely to impact most profoundly in the near term.
That’s what we do at Cientifica.
Since we now know most (if not all) biological processes occur at the nanoscale, the application of life science principles – studying the causes of biological phenomena at the molecular level – means medical and biomedical research is increasingly using a bottom-up rather than the traditional top-down approach, and it is also the area which all our data points to as giving the highest returns from the application of nanotechnologies.
So today we release the first fruits of a major research program we have been undertaking, trying to understand the relationship between nanotechnology and medicine, and to generate some useful market predictions of the kind that are both rational and accurate.
Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery 2011 provides an in-depth presentation of recent developments in nanotech drug delivery (NDD) and provides market opportunities to 2021, for the largest economies in the Americas, Asia, Europe and the rest of the world.
To get to our market forecasts for NDD from 2011 to 2021 we also had to determine the historical market growth for NDD between 2000-2010, which meant wading through a mire of disinformation and speculation (as well as sifting through thousands of publications).
Unusually for this kind of report, we can now segment the market by geographical region and by technology type.
We examined every kind of technology types examined including: solubility & bioavailability, targeted delivery, drug nanocrystals, liposomes, carbon nanotubes, gold nanocarriers, dendrimers, micelles, polymer-based nanocarriers, nanoshells, ceramic nanocarriers, calcium phosphate nanocarriers and many more.
So where is the opportunity? We recommend looking at liposomes, drug nanocrystals and gold nanoparticles, and reading Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery 2011 will tell you why.
Professor Paras N. Prasad, Ph.D. (executive director of University of Buffalo‘s Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics and SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemistry in the UB College of Arts and Sciences) was a co-author with colleagues from the University of Buffalo‘s Photodynamic Therapy Center at Roswell Park Cancer Institute on a paper published in Molecular Pharmaceutics on April 19, 2006: “Diacyllipid Micelle-Based Nanocarrier for Magnetically Guided Delivery of Drugs in Photodynamic Therapy”.
This paper resulted from a work carried out by Professor Prasad and his colleagues and demonstrated that a nanoparticle-based drug delivery system directed by an applied magnetic field lead to the accumulation in tumour cells of nanocarriers custom-designed and drug-filled.
The magnetic field (externally applied) played the role of remote control. This magnetic field remote control directed the nanocarriers to the targeted area in the cell culture. Once the magnetic field was applied (switched on) the concentration of drug inside the tumour cells in the target area showed an increase.
The team of Professor Prasad achieved these results with a novel nanocarrier system, developed from polymer micelles, consisting on nanosized water-dispersible clusters of polymeric molecules.
Professor Prasad explained that polymeric micelles are excellent nanocarriers for photodynamic therapy (PDT) drugs, which are mostly water-insoluble.
When exposed to laser light (in other PDT studies, other wavelength may be used), these drugs generate toxic molecules that destroy the cancer cells.
Along with the PDT drug, the team of Professor Prasad encapsulated inside the nanocarriers iron oxide nanoparticles, which allowed them to respond to externally applied magnetic fields.
The in vitro results showed that magnetically guided delivery to tumour cells of these customized nanocarriers proved to be a more precise targeting, while boosting cellular uptake of the PDT drugs contained inside them.
The in vitro results were supported by confocal microscopy studies.
The main undesirable side-effect associated with cancer PDT is the patient’s strong sensitivity to light for four to six weeks after treatment, a result of PDT drugs that accumulate in the skin.
The relevance of this highly innovative approach work of Professor Prasad and his team stands on the following:
- The use of magnetophoretic control to deliver PDT drug to tumour cells resulting in increased accumulation inside those cells (tumours show the propensity to retain higher concentrations of photosensitive drugs than normal tissues);
- Shows potential to reduce drug accumulation in normal tissues;
- It will open doors to treatments that explore more deeply the advantages of nanotechnology-based PDT drug delivery as well as the technique optimization;
- Shows a wide range of applications for a variety of disease areas, including neurological disease and cardiac disease;
- Opens doors to a wide range of innovation in the nanotechnology-based medical devices industry.
Regarding this last point, in a near future the patient will be in the bedside and close to her/him will be a computer equipped with powerful software that controls remotely the drug delivery to the patient.
On a more advanced phase of innovation, portable, personal and affordable medical devices will be available for patients, avoiding her/his staying at the hospital bedside (depending on the advance of the disease).
Nanotechnology in drug delivery and nanotechnology in medical and biomedical diagnostics have many cross roads, since both fields share technologies, strategic approaches and targeting concerns.
Thus, on an even more advanced phase of innovation, those portable, personal and affordable medical devices will be able to perform nanotechnology-based diagnostics and nanotechnology-based drug delivery, on a context of personalized medicine. Those medical devices will be the first generation of nanotechnology-based theranostics medical devices: nanotheranostics medical devices.
Search and destroy. Better saying: detect early and cure.
More sabre rattling from the the European Parliament who passed a “non binding opinion” with 391 votes in favour and three against, demanding that all nanomaterials should be considered as new substances, and that existing legislation does not take into account the risks associated with nanotechnology.They also demanded that consumer products containing nanomaterials must be labelled ‘nano’.
It’s a repeat of the techniques used by anti technology lobbies and is a very effective strategy that goes something like this:
- Find some evidence that something is dangerous – note that it doesn’t matter if 99.99% of research shows no dangers, parliamentarians are not scientists and it’s unlikely that they will ever check
- Find a few more scientific papers and deliberately misinterpret them in order to back up your agenda
- Use this ‘scientific evidence’ to ‘prove’ that the technology is dangerous – if it turns out you were wrong just ignore any evidence to the contrary and stick to your story
- Once you have sown the idea that a technology is dangerous, call for labelling in an attempt to use public ignorance of science to keep products off the market.
The flaw in this argument is that it only works for things that people might eat or drink, so sticking a “contains nanotech” label on a mobile phone or solar panel won’t have any impact. I sometimes wonder whether groups who try to confuse nanotechnology with GMOs are deliberately trying to confuse the issues to spread fear, or whether they are simply too stupid to tell the difference between various bits of science and spend all day trying to connect their washing machines to the Internet while trying to make phone calls with a plastic chair.
Warning! Contents May Dissapoint
The “International Risk Governance Council,” a Geneva based organisation “whose purpose is to help the understanding and management of global risks that impact on human health and safety, the environment, the economy and society at large” sent me their latest deep thoughts on Risk Governance of Nanotechnology Applications in Food and Cosmetics today, and it proved a rather interesting read.
Anyone following the various debates about the safety of nanotechnologies will be aware that since the seminal Royal Society report in 2004, all other reports have concluded that we either don’t know enough about the science/toxicology/applications/exposure routes yet to make an informed decision, or said to hell with rational science called for an outright ban on the use of nanotechnologies in food/water/industry/fun.
I took a look at the IRGC report and blow me if it wasn’t just as vapid and inconclusive as all the rest.I passed it to one of my colleagues in case I’d missed something and she commented “the report says the same as all the other “risk” reports since the first royal society one. Seems like there is nothing else to say!”
What is particularly staggering is that in an area as important as health and safety no one seems able to commission any real research, and most of the information in the report seems to have come from a couple of weeks of googling, with the consequent lack of gravitas associated with any publication that merely collates other public domain data. Rather than actually doing any work, the IRGC report simply makes comments along the lines of “In the absence of reliable data, the Nanowerk internet portal provides an overview of current or future fields of applications in agriculture, food processing, food packaging and food supplements. Now Nanowerk is an excellent content aggregator, but it’s hardly Nature now is it? The next thing you know we’ll have people quoting TNTlog as an authoritative source!
Anyway to spare you wading through 42 pages of summarising what has already been summarised by other people let’s cut straight to the conclusion:
The food and cosmetics “industries should make a concerted effort to reflect on critical comments and use them constructively, as an incentive to assure the responsible production and use of nanomaterials.
Is that it?
According to the IRGC, the final recommendations will be published in an IRGC Policy Brief in spring 2009, we can hardly wait, and we hope they come up with a bit more insight in the meantime.
Nanotech Breast Improvement - apparently
“The ideal breasts are the ones that are round, laid high on the chest wall, large and firm. If the breasts are not meeting such criteria, this makes not only the women feeling down but her social value also gets tarnished since she feels ‘not so happening’ in any public places such as parties or some sort of get-together. Breasts, being out of the body frame are obvious to get targeted by the gravitational force and over the times, they droop or sag.”
Not my personal opinion of course, but this comes from the marketing for an allegedly nanoparticle based “instant way to Breast Enhancement & Firmness” which the Daily Mail would no doubt classify as “Toxic ‘grey goo’ by stealth.”
The web site video may have caused apoplectic fits or aneurysms for some of the Mail’s readership, though perhaps others would be more than willing to pay $90 for the experience. Despite intense scrutiny, no one in our office can see any difference in the before and after photos.
View Tim Harper's profile