Recent Patents on Nanomedicine - Volume 1, Issue 2, 2011

In today's highly competitive publishing market, launching a new journal like Recent Patents in Nanomedicine (PNM), represents both challenges and opportunities. The challenges: to meet the international standards of a well-positioned company as Bentham Science, with a standing tradition of innovation and quality in offering attractive products to a demanding global public and to differentiate the new publication from similar or pretending equivalent journals. The opportunities are there, for those daring enough to face them: to offer a dynamic forum for one of the most exciting scientific enterprises of the last decades and to start a new tradition of truly not only multi but, mainly, transdisciplinary work in the World of R&D. The aims of RPnM are certainly ambitious, for we pretend not only to attract the best researchers and technologists worldwide working in Nanotechnology focused on medical issues, but to offer a magazine to the readers where the most advanced Biomedical Nanotechnology publications fit to print can be certain to be found. At the end, we want PNM to become an obliged reference for those looking for the keywords that distinguish us: Nano and Medicine. This, however, requires the support of a prestigious house as Bentham Science, which we gratefully acknowledge, in particular to their very efficient and kind staff, Ms. Noureen Azher (Manager Publication, Recent Patents on Nanomedicine) & Editorial Team, key to the success of this idea, but, above all, we require the enthusiastic participation of reputed scholar who have decided to accept our invitation for this opening issue and to whom I'm personally indebted. We also are fortunate to count with a superb list of Editorial Board Members, all very distinguished professionals in their fields, and who shall ensure the quality of the material to be published. Thanks to all and my promise to keep you all very busy with excellent material to revise. I believe this present issue truly represents the broad field that nanoMedicine has become, for it includes articles on novel nanomedicines for cancer, microfluidics fabrication of nanoparticles, a report on the use of platinum nanoparticles for oxidative stress-associated pathologies, the use innovative of a quantum mechanics effect, such as the Giant MagnetoResistance, in medical applications, the technology to produce drug nanocrystals, new multilanthanide materials for imaging purposes, a review of patents related to biomedical applications of fullerenes and other on patents of nanomedicines for brain targeting. Finally, we thank the present and future readers of PNM for their support and encourage them to submit their work and to contact our office for any suggestions, ideas and criticisms, which will be always immediately attended.

Molecules containing multiple lanthanide ions have unique potential in applications for medical imaging including the areas of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and fluoresence imaging. The study of multilanthanide complexes as contrast agents for MRI and as biologically responsive fluorescent probes has resulted in an improved understanding of the structural characteristics that govern the behavior of these complexes. This review will survey the last five years of progress in multinuclear lanthanide complexes with a specific focus on the structural parameters that impact potential medical imaging applications. The patents cited in this review are from the last five years and describe contrast agents that contain multiple lanthanide ions.

Fullerene patents take advantage of the many very interesting biological properties of C60 and its derivatives to encompass a wide range of biomedical applications, including antiviral and anti-cancer ones. Some cosmetic applications have already reached the commercial area, but the main industrial potential of fullerenes in the medical field is still to be exploited. It is to be expected that certified toxicity data of each active derivative must be provided in order to boost this promising field.

This article provided an overview of recent patents on microfluidic-assisted fabrication of nanoparticles and their applications for nanomedicine. Microfluidic dynamics was predominantly characterized by laminar flow due to the small dimensions involved, which resulted in unique fluid morphologies and the production of polymer particles with an improved control over their sizes, size distributions, morphologies, and compositions. We compared capillary-based microsystem and microchannel-based microsystem, and presented novel structural improvements on microchips. New developments in microfabrication techniques provided complex, compact and highly integrated platforms that might produce more complex droplets. Advanced technologies and integrating or modular design may push the microchannelbased microsystem toward novel mutilfunctionalization to realize bio-encapsulation, transportation, mixing or injection, screening, and detection for biomedicine purpose. In the near future, the microchannel-based microsystem might function as not only the assay platforms, but also the implantable devices to monitor on-line.

In this review article are introduced some current topics concerning drug nanocrystals related to their physicochemical properties and production technologies with reference to patents. The physicochemical properties of nanonized drugs (i.e. drug nanocrystals) are individual, unique, and different from those of micronized drugs. As a result, drug nanocrystals have some superior pharmaceutical properties compared with their micronized equivalents (e.g. improved solubility and bioavailability). Already some drug nanocrystal products are commercially available. Drug nanocrystallization is an innovative formulation principle mainly for poorly soluble drugs. The special features of drug nanocrystals and their production technologies are described.

Giant Magnetoresistance (GMR) is a quantum mechanical effect found in thin film materials that are composed of alternating nano-size ferromagnetic and non magnetic layers. When a GMR material is in the presence of a magnetic field a change in electrical resistance is observed. The GMR effect has been used to produce magnetic sensors that can be used in a variety of applications. Although there are some sensors that have greater sensitivity and lower magnetic detection limits, GMR sensors have more commercial potential due to their small size, low power use, low fabrication cost, and their reproducible operation in very narrow magnetic ranges. The medical field is rapidly adopting the use of GMR magnetic sensors for many medical applications; this is leading to an increase in the number of patents that include GMR sensors. Two of the most promising medical application areas for GMR sensors are medical diagnostics and implant communication. This article reviews the GMR mechanism, measurement, fabrication techniques, and discusses a variety of medical applications and patents that incorporate GMR sensors.

Nanomedicines have been studied for a variety of medical applications, including drug delivery, molecular imaging, biosensor applications, and combined therapy and diagnostics (theranostics). In particular, therapeutic agentloaded nanomedicines have emerged as next-generation medicines for achieving improved therapeutic indexes for cancer treatment. A series of clinical studies have substantiated the potential of nanoparticle-based therapeutics for modulating in vivo fate, demonstrating enhanced tumor accumulation of delivered therapeutics. Although most commercialized nanomedicines have been based on a passive-targeting strategy that exploits the enhanced permeability and retention effect, there is an increasing need for the development of active-targeting technologies. In this context, active-targeting approaches involving the introduction of specific targeting moieties on the surface of nanoparticles to reinforce tumorlocalization and reduce side effects have received considerable recent attention. The leading strategy has been the conjugation of ligand molecules that specifically bind to receptors that are overexpressed on tumor cells relative to normal cells. Lipids and polymer-based nanoparticles have been used as drug-carrying nanomedicines. The receptors used for targeted delivery of nanomedicines include folate receptors, transferrin receptors, asialoglycoprotein receptors, integrin, CD44, and others. In this review, we introduce the various patented strategies for receptor-mediated, targeted delivery of nanomedicines.

For more than 30 years, extensive efforts have been made to enhance the delivery of therapeutic molecules to the CNS as they have limited access because of blood brain barriers (BBB), enzymatic barriers and multiple endogenous transporters. Various strategies have been developed to transfer the therapeutic molecules across the vascular barriers of the CNS. Nanomedicine based approaches have risen tremendously over the last few years. These systems have many advantages over the conventional formulations, such as the possibility of bypassing the BBB in a non-invasive manner, the possibility of being structurally modified to modulate the biopharmaceutical properties of the encapsulated molecules and having structures made up of biocompatible and biodegradable materials. The present review focuses on the recent patents on nanomedicine based approaches like liposomes, nanoparticles, dendrimers and nanoemulsions for treating CNS diseases which would give an insight to the researchers, academia and industrialist.

Platinum nanoparticles (nano-Pts) scavenge superoxides and peroxides indicating that they can act as superoxide dismutase (SOD)/catalase mimetics. This could be useful for protection against and/or amelioration of oxidative stress-associated pathologies. Recent studies investigated the effects of poly acrylic acid-capped nano-Pts on hyperthermia (HT) and ultraviolet (UV)-induced apoptosis and the underlying molecular mechanisms in human lymphoma cells and keratinocytes, respectively. The reports showed that nano-Pts resulted in HT-desensitization in lymphoma cells where the signaling pathways involved in apoptosis were inhibited by nano-Pts. On the other hand, nano- Pts effectively protected against UV-induced inflammation in keratinocytes by decreasing reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and inhibiting apoptosis. This chapter reviews the latest findings on the effects of nano-Pts on HT- and UVinduced apoptosis and also discusses some recent patents related to this field.

The patents annotated in this section have been selected from various patent databases. The patents annotated in this section are relevant to the articles published in this journal issue, categorized by therapeutic areas/targets and therapeutic agents related to Nanomedicine....