Developments in drug delivery with special reference to nanotechnology: A review.

ABSTRACT

With the emergence of nanoscience as a distinct speciality in recent times, various methods have been introduced in pharmaceuticals to produce drugs which are more efficacious and less hazardous. Nanomedicine is an offshoot of nanotechnology, which deals with the employment of devices less than 200 nanometres in size, in various diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Nanocarriers get concentrated preferentially in tumours, inflammatory sites, and at antigen sampling sites. Once accumulated at the target site, they can act as a local drug depot at the disease site. Nanomaterials comprise carbon-based particles, such as fullerenes, various organic dendrimers, liposomes, and other polymeric compounds. Quantom dots, nanotubes and nanoparticles, nanocapsules and nanospheres, nanoemulsions, nanosuspensions, and polymeric phospholipid micelles are a few that are being increasingly tried in the nano drug delivery system. However, it is important to remember that nanoparticles can act on living cells at the nanolevel, producing not only biologically desirable, but also undesirable effects