title: Sound understanding of environmental, health and safety, clinical, and market aspects is imperative to clinical translation of nanomedicines.
abstract: Nanotechnology has transformed materials engineering. However, despite much excitement in the scientific community, translation of nanotechnology-based developments has suffered from significant translational gaps, particularly in the field of biomedicine. Of the many concepts investigated, very few have entered routine clinical application. Safety concerns and associated socioeconomic uncertainties, together with the lack of incentives for technology transfer, are undoubtedly imposing significant hurdles to effective clinical translation of potentially game-changing developments. Commercialisation aspects are only rarely considered in the early stages and in many cases, the market is not identified early on in the process, hence precluding market-oriented development. However, methodologies and in-depth understanding of mechanistic processes existing in the environmental, health and safety (EHS) community could be leveraged to accelerate translation. Here, we discuss the most important stepping stones for (nano)medicine development along with a number of suggestions to facilitate future translation.
authors.affiliation: a Department Materials Meet Life , Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) , St. Gallen , Switzerland.
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rösslein
authors.affiliation: b Department of Molecular and Clinical Pharmacology , University of Liverpool , Liverpool , UK.
authors.forename: Neill J
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: Liptrott
authors.affiliation: b Department of Molecular and Clinical Pharmacology , University of Liverpool , Liverpool , UK.
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Owen
authors.affiliation: c CEA, LETI, MINATEC Campus , Université Grenoble Alpes , Grenoble , France.
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Boisseau
authors.affiliation: a Department Materials Meet Life , Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) , St. Gallen , Switzerland.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wick
authors.affiliation: a Department Materials Meet Life , Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) , St. Gallen , Switzerland.
authors.forename: Inge K
authors.initials: IK
authors.lastname: Herrmann
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research; D015510:Clinical Medicine / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards; D004782:Environmental Health; D006801:Humans; D050997:Nanomedicine / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000379:methods*; D012449:Safety
keywords: Environmental toxicology; nanomedicine; particle characterisation; risk assessment; translation