Translational nanomedicine: status assessment and opportunities.
Nano-enabled technologies hold great promise for medicine and health. The rapid progress by the physical sciences/engineering communities in synthesizing nanostructures and characterizing their properties must be rapidly exploited in medicine and health toward reducing mortality rate, morbidity an illness imposes on a patient, disease prevalence, and general societal burden. A National Science Foundation-funded workshop, "Re-Engineering Basic and Clinical Research to Catalyze Translational Nanoscience," was held 16-19 March 2008 at the University of Southern California. Based on that workshop and literature review, this article briefly explores scientific, economic, and societal drivers for nanomedicine initiatives; examines the science, engineering, and medical research needs; succinctly reviews the US federal investment directly germane to medicine and health, with brief mention of the European Union (EU) effort; and presents recommendations to accelerate the translation of nano-enabled technologies from laboratory discovery into clinical practice.


BACKGROUND
An excellent review paper based on the NSF funded workshop "Re-Engineering Basic and Clinical Research to Catalyze Translational Nanoscience" (16-19 March 2008) and extensive literature search, this paper briefly explores the current state and future perspectives of nanomedicine.
Murday
James S
JS
University of Southern California, Washington, DC 20004 USA. murday@usc.edu
Siegel
Richard W
RW
Stein
Judith
J
Wright
J Fraser
JF
D015510:Clinical Medicine / Q000191:economics / Q000639:trends*; D003226:Congresses as Topic; D035082:Federal Government; D050997:Nanomedicine / Q000191:economics / Q000639:trends*; D012109:Research Support as Topic / Q000191:economics; D057170:Translational Research, Biomedical / Q000191:economics / Q000639:trends*