Nanoscience & Nanotechnology-Asia - Volume 15, Issue 2, 2025

Antibiotic resistance is a growing global health crisis, threatening the efficacy of conventional antibiotics and leading to increased mortality rates, prolonged hospital stays, and higher medical costs. The World Health Organization emphasizes the urgent need for new antibiotics as multidrug-resistant bacteria spread, rendering many treatments ineffective. This crisis drives the exploration of alternative antibiotic sources, particularly medicinal plants known for their bioactive compounds with potent antimicrobial properties. Unlike synthetic antibiotics, plant-derived compounds often have multiple mechanisms of action, reducing the likelihood of resistance development and offering a rich pool of structurally diverse molecules for optimization. However, plant extracts face limitations like low water solubility, resulting in reduced bioavailability. Recent advancements in nanotechnology have revolutionized drug delivery systems, offering significant benefits in formulating and delivering antibiotics. Nanocarriers, such as lipid-based, polymeric, and metallic nanoparticles, improve the stability, bioavailability, and controlled release of encapsulated drugs. Incorporating plant-derived antibiotics into nanocarriers addresses issues like poor solubility, rapid degradation, and limited targeting associated with traditional therapies. This review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of advancements in plant-based antibiotics and their nano formulations. It explores the extraction and isolation of bioactive compounds from medicinal plants, discusses the mechanisms underlying their antibacterial activities, and examines various nanocarrier systems used to enhance their efficacy. Additionally, it highlights recent research findings, addresses current challenges, and proposes future directions for developing plant-based antibiotic nanoformulations. The review underscores the potential of integrating phytochemicals and nanotechnology to combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria, paving the way for innovative and effective therapeutic strategies.

This review explores the growing field of neurotherapeutics, focusing on biofunctionalized nanocarriers as innovative systems to deliver therapeutic agents, such as curcumin, across the blood-brain barrier (BBB). It highlights the limitations of conventional methods and presents nanocarriers as promising solutions for overcoming these challenges. The methodology examines experimental techniques used to investigate curcumin-loaded nanoparticles and their application in treating neurological conditions like multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and Huntington’s disease. By integrating nanotechnology, pharmacology, and neuroscience, the review emphasizes the potential of smart vehicles to enhance brain-targeted therapies and outlines a path for future research. Future research should refine nanocarrier design for better specificity and efficiency in crossing the BBB, enhancing brain-targeted drug delivery. Advancements in nanotechnology may enable personalized neurotherapeutics tailored to patients' genetics and disease progression. Translating these innovations to clinical use will require addressing regulatory hurdles and conducting trials. In recent case studies, biofunctionalized exosomes and lipid-based nanocarriers efficiently transported curcumin across the blood-brain barrier, reducing inflammation in spinal cord injury models and amyloid plaque accumulation in Alzheimer's models, highlighting curcumin's potential in treating neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases. Multifunctional nanoparticles capable of delivering multiple drugs or combining diagnostic and therapeutic functions could transform neurological disorder treatment. Exploring other neurotherapeutic compounds beyond curcumin and studying the long-term safety, toxicity, and immune response of nanocarriers will be crucial for clinical success.

Magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) represent a transformative advancement in the fight against cancer. They offer an innovative method for diagnosing the condition, managing its symptoms, and monitoring its progression in real-time. This paper explores the extraordinary potential of MNPs to revolutionize cancer therapy through advanced imaging methods, magnetic hyperthermia, and targeted drug delivery. Medical experts can now accurately target tumors using MNPs while inflicting minimum damage to healthy cells. The future innovation of personalized magneto-theranostic will involve MNPs by integrating real-time diagnostics with tailored treatment regimens based on the molecular profile of each patient's malignancy. MNPs will transform cancer immunotherapy through liquid biopsies for early cancer detection, gene therapy for resistant tumors, and immune modulation. Drug resistance and tumor recurrence represent significant challenges in oncology; nevertheless, MNPs, with breakthroughs such as biodegradable nanoparticle designs and enhancements facilitated by artificial intelligence, provide considerable promise for addressing these issues. Safer, more effective, and personalized cancer treatments are attainable, and this review illustrates the unequivocal potential of MNPs as a versatile, patient-centric strategy. In the future, MNPs may offer promise to cancer patients globally by enhancing survival rates and transforming cancer treatment to be more precise, minimally invasive, and adaptable.