A number of clinical applications of nanobiotechnology, such as disease diagnosis, target-specific drug delivery, and molecular imaging are being laboriously investigated at present. Some new promising products are also undergoing clinical trials. Such advanced applications of this approach to biological systems will undoubtedly transform the foundations of diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease in future. Some of these applications are discussed below.
- Diagnostic applications Current diagnostic methods for most diseases depend on the manifestation of visible symptoms before medical professionals can recognize that the patient suffers from a specific illness.
- Therapeutic applications:Nanotechnology can provide new formulations of drugs with less side effects and routes for drug delivery.
- Sparse cell detection Sparse cells are both rare and physiologically distinct from their surrounding cells in normal physiological conditions (e.g. cancer cells, lymphocytes, fetal cells and HIV-infected T cells). They are significant in the detection and diagnosis of various genetic defects.
- Protein chips Proteins play the central role in establishing the biological phenotype of organisms in healthy and diseased states and are more indicative of functionality. Hence, proteomics is important in disease diagnostics and pharmaceutics, where drugs can be developed to alter signaling pathways.
- Drug Delivery- Nanoparticles as therapeutics can be delivered to targeted sites, including locations that cannot be easily reached by standard drugs. For instance, if a therapeutic can be chemically attached to a nanoparticle, it can then be guided to the site of the disease or infection by radio or magnetic signals.
- Gene delivery Current gene therapy systems suffer from the inherent difficulties of effective pharmaceutical processing and development, and the chance of reversion of an engineered mutant to the wild type.
- Liposomes - liposome being composed of a lipid bilayer can be used in gene therapy due to its ability to pass through lipid bilayers and cell membranes of the target.