Current Nanomedicine - Volume 12, Issue 2, 2022

The effectiveness, cell viability, and selective delivery of medications and diagnostic substances to target organs, tissues, and organs are typical concerns in the care and prognosis of many illnesses. Neurological diseases pose complex challenges, as cerebral targeting represents a yet unresolved challenge in pharmacotherapy, owing to the blood-brain boundary, a densely compacted membrane of endothelial cells that prohibits undesired chemicals from reaching the brain. Engineered nanoparticles, with dimensions ranging from 1 to 100 nm, provide intriguing biomedical techniques that may allow for resolving these issues, including the ability to cross the bloodbrain barrier. It has substantially explored nanoparticles in the previous century, contributing to substantial progress in biomedical studies and medical procedures. Using many synthesized nanoparticles on the molecular level has given many potential gains in various domains of regenerative medicine, such as illness detection, cascaded cell treatment, tissue regeneration, medication, and gene editing. This review will encapsulate the novel developments of nanostructured components used in neurological diseases with an emphasis on the most recent discoveries and forecasts for the future of varied biological nanoparticles for tissue repair, drug inventions, and the synthesizing of the delivery mechanism.

Pickering Emulsion therapy is a novel approach to treating various human diseases, including cancer. Traditional cancer treatment modalities, such as surgery, radiation, radiotherapy, and immunotherapy, have only achieved minimal success. Pickering emulsion in cancer therapeutics has given cancer patients a new hope. Pickering Emulsions have grown in popularity over the last 15 years, owing to their highly desirable properties, similar to those of ordinary emulsions, namely their excellent stability. This review focused on the benefits, drawbacks, characterization parameters (droplet size and strength, for example), opportunities, and different development procedures of Pickering Emulsion for cancer diseases. This review also addressed recent developments in Pickering Emulsions' technological issues. It examined the advantages and disadvantages of using such formulations for topical pharmaceutical and cosmetic applications instead of traditional surfactant-based methods. Pickering Emulsion's evolution as a multifunctional dosage form carrier reflects renewed optimism in the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries.

Cancer is a group of disease where the body cells continuously grow without proper cell division thereby causing tumours and leading to metastasis. Among many types of cancer, liver cancer remains a common and leading cause of human death. Plants have always been a great source of medicine and pharmacotherapy. Phytochemicals are plant-produced metabolites and phenolic phytochemicals are a subclass of it. Phenolic phytochemicals like curcumin, gallic acid and EGCG are secondary plant metabolites. They have been found to be effective and can improve the cell signalling pathways that govern cancer cell proliferations, inflammations, nearby invasions, and apoptosis. These phenolic phytochemicals greatly induce cell apoptosis and inhibit cancer cell growth. In this review article, we discuss how to improve the mentioned phytochemical's potency against hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). One of the best approaches to improve the efficacy of these natural phytochemicals is to prepare nano formulations of these phytochemicals. Nano formulations impressively increase bioavailability, stability, absorption in the body and increased efficiency of these phytochemicals. The diverse character of many nanoparticles (NP) discussed in this article enables these systems to exhibit strong anticancer activity, emphasising combined therapy's benefits and necessity to combat cancer. In addition, nano formulations of these phenolic phytochemicals remarkably show a high apoptosis rate against HepG2 cells (HCC).

Background: Nanogels are hydrophilic polymer networks that range in size from 20 to 200 nanometers. Polymer is used to make nanogels, which can be obtained from natural or manufactured sources. Nanogels can deliver peptides, antigens, carbohydrates, oligonucleotides, proteins, and genes, among other things. These nanogels also provide inorganic materials, such as silver nanoparticles and quantum dots. Both solid and liquid nanogels have the same properties. These nanogels penetrate the stratum corneum more effectively than conventional gels. Dermatology and cosmetology have both experimented with nanoscale technology. Objective: The medication can penetrate the stratum corneum through a variety of routes. One of the ways lipids can infiltrate the skin membrane is through the transcellular route. Cream, gel, ointment, lotion, thin-film, and foams are among the topical preparations used. Nanogels are categorised into two types: those that respond to stimuli and those that cross-link. For the manufacture of nanogels, numerous polymers of synthetic, natural, or semisynthetic origin are commonly employed. Nanoprecipitation, emulsion polymerization, and dispersion polymerization are all ways to make these nanogels. These nanogels are rarely released by diffusion mechanism employing the Fick’s law. Conclusion: The nano gel is a new advanced technology that allows to improve drug molecule penetration in the stratum corneum. If poorly soluble and permeable medications are administered through this nanogel technology, their solubility and permeability will be improved.

Aim: The aim of the present investigation entails the development and evaluation of a topical nanoemulgel formulation of tazarotene for the effective treatment of excision wounds. Background: Tazarotene (TZR) is a retinoid derivative marketed for the treatment of acne and psoriasis and recent investigations indicate its excellent wound healing potential. Despite having magnificent wound healing potential, it suffers from pharmacokinetic limitations of low aqueous solubility and local bioavailability. Conventional marketed formulations of TZR have been reported to cause significant skin irritation and redness after its topical application. Keeping this in view, the present investigation was designed to develop nanoemulsion based gel with the intention to resolve the above mentioned pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic issues. Objective: The goal of the study was to develop a stable and effective tazarotene-loaded nanoemulgel for treating excision wounds, which can also overcome the issues associated with the native drug. Methods: Various oils, surfactants and co-surfactants were selected on the basis of their solubilisation potential for tazarotene. Pseudoternary phase plots were constructed to obtain a stable nanoemulsion region for various proportions of oil, surfactant: co-surfactant (Smix) and water and to determine optimized concentration ranges for the robust formulation of tazarotene. Various characterization parameters were studied to investigate the optimized formulation having desired attributes of nanoemulsion. Reducing power assay and phamacodymanic studies were conducted to determine the wound healing potential of developed nanoemulgel. Results: TZR loaded nanoemulsion was successfully developed with nano-sized globules using tea tree oil with Tween 20 as surfactant and PEG 400 as co-surfactant. Prepared nanoemulsions were thermodynamically stable and were further gellified using Carbopol 940 as a biodegradable gelling polymer. Prepared gels showed good spreadability, drug permeation and stability. In vivo investigations demonstrated that optimized formulation successfully masked the irritant nature of tazarotene. Moreover, the pharmacodynamic evaluation of the developed nanoemulsion gel revealed its significant analgesic, anti-inflammatory properties in addition to its markable wound contraction as compared to control. Conclusion: The results demonstrated the potential of developed nanoemulgel over marketed formulation to overcome the drawbacks like redness and erythema. It also showed significant healing efficacy over other tested formulations owing to the synergistic activity of tazarotene and tea tree oil encapsulated in the nanoemulsion system.

Background: Dexamethasone is currently available as a suspension for the treatment of anterior ocular inflammatory diseases that are given through eye drops. However, less than 5% of the drug gets absorbed when applied topically as eye drops. The major portion of administered drug either comes out from the eye or gets subjected to nasolacrimal drainage, resulting in poor bioavailability. Objective: The present study aims to develop a polymeric ocular insert containing dexamethasone as a drug by employing the electrospinning technique. Methods: Dexamethasone (0.1% w/v) loaded electrospun sheet was also made using 10% w/v EC: HPMC: PEO (60:20:20) in a solvent system of ethanol: water (90:10) at optimized electrospinning parameters of 12kV with a flow rate of 0.8mL/hr and distance of 20 cm between tip and collector. Results: The prepared nanocomposite insert was characterized for DSC and FTIR-ATR spectroscopy, revealing no physical-chemical interaction between drugs with polymers. The thickness of the electrospun sheet was found to be 270±0.02 μm, and % the drug content was found to be 0.43±0.01% w/w. The release profile showed that around 95% drug was released in 48 hrs. This release profile showed that the prepared drug-loaded electrospun ocular insert is best suitable for once-a-day delivery. Assessment of mechanical properties like young’s modulus, tensile strength, and % elongation showed that the prepared insert could be handled easily without any breakage or damage. Conclusion: Upon delivery in the conjunctival sac, the developed insert is best suitable for once-aday delivery. The developed electrospun insert, consisting of a unique polymer composite of biodegradable polymers, avails the benefits of nanofibers imparting prolonged release, and this novel formulation overcomes the limitations of conventional therapies. This reduces the dosing frequency and improves patient compliance.