NANOPARTICLES AND CURRENT TECHNOLOGY IN PHARMACY AND MEDICINE: AN OVER VIEW

Undrala Sushen*, Awanija Chouhan and Md. Gulam Mustafa

ABSTRACT

Nanoparticles are of great interest for a wide variety of applications in the field of information, energy, environmental, industrial, medical and pharmaceutical technologies due to their unique or improved properties determined primarily by size, composition and structure along with their self organized film structures, the most emerging branch in Nanotechnology is medicinal or pharmaceutical sciences known as “Pharmaceutical nanotechnology” presents new tools, opportunities and scope, which are expected to have significant applications in disease diagnostics and therapeutics. Recently nanopharamceuticals reveal enormous potential in drug delivery as carrier for spatial and temporal delivery of bioactive and diagnostics. Additionally it also provides smart materials for tissue engineering. This discipline is now well established for drug delivery, diagnostics, prognostic and treatment of diseases through its nanoengineered tools. Drugs that are transformed into nano range offers some unique features which can lead to prolonged circulation, improved drug localization, enhanced drug efficacy etc. Various pharmaceutical nanotechnology based systems which can be termed as nanopharmaceuticals like polymeric nanoparticles, magnetic nanoparticles, liposomes, carbon nanotubes, quantum dots, dendrimers, metallic nanoparticles, polymeric nanoparticles, etc. have brought about revolutionary changes in drug delivery as well as the total medical service system. However some recently found health risk evidences limits their utilization in pharmaceutical industry. Some concerning issues like safety, bioethical issues, toxicity hazards, physiological and pharmaceutical challenges get to be resolved by the scientists. Current researchers are still lacking sufficient data and guidelines regarding safe use of these nanotechnology based devices and materials. Therefore pharmaceutical nanotechnology is still in developmental stage. This article summarizes the types of nanopharmaceuticals with the most important applications and nanoparticles associated health risk related information available till date.

Keywords: Nanotechnology, Pharmaceutical nanotechnology, Nanoshells, Nanobulba, Nanobiotechnology.