Recent Patents on Nanomedicine - Volume 5, Issue 1, 2015

Products created by nanotechnology are one of the major advancements in cosmetic technology and have resulted into further development of cosmetic science. As nanomaterials continually gain attention in the field of health care, cosmetic industries are perceived to be the most advanced in incorporating nanoparticles into their products. Products underpinned by nanotechnology have increased by nearly 516% between the years 2006 -2013. A large number of patents based on nanotechnology are in the sphere of personnel care products. On the other hand there are several safety issues that are gaining continuous attention. In the light of current knowledge, agencies like the Federal Drug Administration (US) and Directive of EU Regulation and International Cooperation on Cosmetic Regulation established laws for continuous testing and transparency in the research based on nanocosmetics. This article seeks to bring an overview of nanotechnology and its applications in cosmetics published in scientific papers and patents.

Nanomedicine is the relevance of nanotechnology in the area of healthcare, diagnosis of disease, cure and prevention of disease. Nanotechnology covers the diverse area of matters at dimensions between approximately 1 to 100 nanometers. Nanotechnology has enormous applications in drug delivery field. Nano drug delivery systems can reduce the drug consumption and side-effects by lowering the deposition of the active agent in the non targeted sites. Ayurveda is thousands of years old holistic system of Indian medicine. Various herbs, metals and non-metals preparations are used as medicine in Ayurveda. In the Ayurvedic description, several metallic preparations called Bhasma are in clinical use since 8th century AD. The Puta system of Ayurveda describes that metals or minerals should be heated at high temperature for melting and then it quench in suitable media like herbal juices or decoction for specified times. The Bhasma (incinerated metals) is obtained by repeating these methods several times. In this process the toxic effects of the metals are not only nullified but are transformed into biologically active nanoparticles. When various Bhasmas viz. Swarna bhasma, Makshika bhasma, Abhrak bhasma, Tamra bhasma and Louha bhasma were subjected to analysis under electron microscope it was found that they were similar to nanocrystalline materials possessing similar physico-chemical properties. The therapeutic effect of Bhasma may be attributed to large surface area of materials and small particle size by which they can easily transported into cell nucleus and to specific target sites as desired.

Degenerative joint diseases have seen a rise in the past few decades. Among them, the prevalence of Osteoarthritis (OA) is the highest as compared to the other types of arthritis. It involves the degradation of cartilage in joints that ultimately leads to their degeneration. Globally, it affects over 200 million people and the statistics are only expected to increase over the next few decades. The treatment approach for initial stages of OA involves changes in the lifestyle, use of analgesics, NSAIDs and other medications. As the condition worsens, the end point treatment is generally a prosthetic implant followed by surgery. These approaches are short-term and the patients are often found complaining of the post-surgical complications of the invasive methods. This has created the need for less invasive and sustainable treatment approaches. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have the potential to be differentiated into various kinds of cells making stem cell based therapy an attractive approach for both, researchers and medical experts. We aimed at fabricating biomaterials and microstructures that would provide these MSCs with support and would allow them to organize themselves. The biomaterial and micro-structures fabricated by the “Layer-by-Layer”(L-b-l) method exhibited extracellular matrix (ECM) like properties enhancing the adhesion and differentiation of the MSCs. Similar activity has been claimed by researchers of Osaka University who have filed a patent for self-organization for osteochondral regeneration. It was observed that the human MSCs organized themselves better on the biomaterial that we had fabricated for them. We also found that the micro-structures had the potential to give rise to a complex scaffold system.

Chemical reduction technique is one of the easiest methods for synthesizing nickel nanoparticles in low temperature ranges. The patents claimed different types of reducing agents like primary amines, organic amines hydrazine hydrate, sodium borohydride etc. Ether, polyols like ethylene glycol, diethylene glycol and triethylene glycol could be used as solvents and compounds like polyvinylpyrrolidone could be used as capping agent. Present work deals with the synthesis of nickel nanoparticles by chemical reduction technique using hydrazine hydrate as reducing agent. The precursor used in this work was nickel chloride hexahydrate. Typical procedure for hydrazine hydrate reduction route involves dissolving the precursor salt in ethylene glycol, which is followed by the addition of hydrazine hydrate and NaOH to the reaction mixture. The purpose of the sodium hydroxide in the synthesis is to maintain the alkalinity. Ethylene glycol was used as a solvent. The black particles were washed using ethanol and dried in oven at 80 ºC for 3 h. Nickel particles were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD) to determine the crystallinity and the crystal size. Crystal size of the particle was determined using Debye-Scherrer equation. Particle size and the morphology of the particles were obtained using scanning electron microscope analysis and elemental composition was analyzed using energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy analysis.

The rationale of this study was to develop a SMEDDS based thermally triggered in situ gelling intramuscular implant of Rifampicin. The SMEDDS based in situ gelling system composed of oleic acid, tween 80, ethanol and Poloxamer 188. The physicochemical properties such as morphology of solution and gel, droplet size distribution, in situ gelling in chicken muscle, phase transition of SMEDDS at 37 oC and in vitro dissolution were investigated. The results showed the gelation of formulation at 37 °C and the in vitro drug release data suggest 80% release of the drug at the end of 7 days and it follows zero order kinetics. The FTIR studies shows absence of interaction between the drug and the excipients and the particle size analysis suggests a Nano system. From the results it was noted that Poloxamer based in situ gelling systems have a promising future as a novel drug delivery system for the delivery of BCS class II drugs.

New production insights are being prospected for regenerative medicine purposes to tackle current implant problems encountered regarding supply scarcity as well as infection and rejection episodes. Supercritical fluid technology emerges as a promising green solvent-based option for the high throughput production of solventfree scaffolds compatible with the incorporation of thermally-labile compounds. A patent survey on the evolution (from the first patent on the topic in 1991 to present) of the state-of-the-technique on scaffold production using supercritical fluids is presented in this work. Role of supercritical fluids in these patents has been classified into three groups: preparation of synthetic scaffolds, treatment and purification of tissues, and post-treatment of medical devices. Key processing parameters for each manufacturing technique are identified as well as their main possibilities, advantages and limitations.

Some authors use the term “nanosensor” for biomolecules in nano molar concentrations acting as signals for living cells. In our review we emphasize on microbial sensors for detecting pathogens and on the “hardware” - the type of nanostructures used as a pad of bio sensing element. The main object is different type of nano-structured material used in the sensing process - non functionalized metal nanoparticles, metal oxides forming thin films and functionalized sensors as antibody-coated and aptamer-coated nanostructures and thin films. The latter have shown high selectivity and sensitivity and appear to be promising for future applications in medicine and environmental testing. Recent patents based on nanostructures for detection of clinically important pathogens are discussed. Our investigation proved the sensitivity of thin zinc oxide films to bacterial quantity of Gracilicutes and Firmicutes bacteria. The observed sensitivity was a single cell in a drop of water, but the change of potential to Pseudomonas cells was almost ten times higher than to Bacillus. It could be due not only to the bacterial type of cell wall but also to the type of dopant and the crystal structure of the ZnO thin film.