| Abstrakt: |
Nanotechnology, as a field of applied science, focuses on the development, production, characterization and application of materials, and devices at the level of molecules and atoms with a typical size between 10−9 nm and 10−6 μm. Nanotherapeutics, a rapidly expanding area of medicine, uses nanotechnology products for highly specific medical interventions at the molecular scale for curing diseases or repairing damaged tissues. Although some nanotechnology products can be applied alone as therapeutic or imaging agents, they are being most often used as pharmaceutical nanocarriers for delivering drugs or imaging agents to the site of the action in desired quantities and releasing therapeutic loads with a specific time profile. Linear and branched polymers, dendrimers, quantum dots, nanoparticles, nanospheres, nanotubes, nanocrystals, nanogels, liposomes, micelles, as well as other types of nanocarriers are being employed in different fields of medicine for diagnostics, imaging, treatment, and prophylaxis of many pathological conditions (Fig. 1) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
