title: Physical chemistry of nanomedicine: understanding the complex behaviors of nanoparticles in vivo.
abstract: Nanomedicine is an interdisciplinary field of research at the interface of science, engineering, and medicine, with broad clinical applications ranging from molecular imaging to medical diagnostics, targeted therapy, and image-guided surgery. Despite major advances during the past 20 years, there are still major fundamental and technical barriers that need to be understood and overcome. In particular, the complex behaviors of nanoparticles under physiological conditions are poorly understood, and detailed kinetic and thermodynamic principles are still not available to guide the rational design and development of nanoparticle agents. Here we discuss the interactions of nanoparticles with proteins, cells, tissues, and organs from a quantitative physical chemistry point of view. We also discuss insights and strategies on how to minimize nonspecific protein binding, how to design multistage and activatable nanostructures for improved drug delivery, and how to use the enhanced permeability and retention effect to deliver imaging agents for image-guided cancer surgery.
authors.affiliation: Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Chemistry, Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30322; email: snie@emory.edu.
authors.forename: Lucas A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Lane
authors.forename: Ximei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Qian
authors.forename: Andrew M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: Shuming
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nie
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002462:Cell Membrane / Q000378:metabolism; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D057054:Molecular Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D050997:Nanomedicine / Q000379:methods*; D053758:Nanoparticles / Q000032:analysis / Q000378:metabolism*; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000379:methods; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis; D011506:Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D025321:Surgery, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods
chemical_list: D011506:Proteins
keywords: active targeting; antifouling; fluorescent dyes; image-guided surgery; molecular imaging; oncology; passive targeting