Nanotechnology in Personalized and Predictive Oncology

Nanotechnology in Personalized and Predictive Oncology

Jonathan W Simons, May D Wang, Shuming Nie
US Oncological Disease 2006 - Issue II
Published: October 2008
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Cancer nanotechnology is a cross-disciplinary field of research in science, engineering, and medicine for cancer imaging, molecular diagnosis, and targeted therapy.1,2 The basic rationale is that nanometer-sized particles such as biodegradable micelles, semiconductor quantum dots, and iron oxide nanocrystals have optical, magnetic, or structural properties that are not available from either molecules or bulk solids.3-5 When linked with biotargeting ligands such as monoclonal antibodies, peptides or small molecules, these nanoparticles can be used to target malignant tumors with high affinity and specificity. In the ‘mesoscopic’ size range of 5–100nm diameter, nanoparticles also have large surface areas and functional groups for conjugating to multiple diagnostic (e.g. optical, radioisotopic or magnetic) and therapeutic (e.g. anticancer) agents.

Recent advances have led to multifunctional nanoparticle probes for molecular and cellular imaging, nanoparticle drugs for targeted therapy and integrated nanodevices for early disease detection and screening.6-13 These developments have opened exciting opportunities for personalized oncology in which cancer detection, diagnosis, and therapy are tailored to each individual’s molecular profile, and also for predictive oncology in which genetic/molecular information is used to predict tumor development, progression, and clinical outcome.

For applications in oncology, nanotechnology is linked with biomolecular signatures or biomarkers that are correlated with tumor behavior and clinical outcome. These markers are commonly defined as mutant genes, RNA, proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, small metabolite molecules, and altered expressions of them.

For individualized therapy, biomarkers enable the characterization of patient populations and quantification of the extent to which new drugs reach their intended targets.14,15 One example is the drug trastuzumab (Herceptin®; Genentech/Roche), a monoclonal antibody designed to target amplified and over-expressed ERBB2 (also known as HER2) tyrosine kinase receptor found in only ~30% of breast cancers. In another example, the clinical response of lung cancer patients to the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitor gefitinib (Iressa®; AstraZeneca) is associated with a small number of genetic mutations.16,17 Thus, a molecular diagnostic test could be used to identify patients that are most likely to respond to this drug.

In this article, the current status of cancer nanotechnology and its applications in molecular tumor imaging, diagnosis, and targeted therapy will be discussed. Together with cancer bioinformatics and biocomputing, nanotechnology is one of the most promising and enabling technologies and it should make a significant impact in clinical oncology.

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