Surface-Engineered Cancer Nanomedicine: Rational Design And Recent Progress.

Cancer is highly heterogeneous in nature and characterized by abnormal cells grow uncontrollably. It is responsible for second leading cause of death in the world. Nanotechnology is explored profoundly for site-specific delivery of cancer chemotherapeutics as well as overcome multidrug-resistance (MDR) challenges in cancer. The progress in design of various smart biocompatible materials (such as polymers, lipids and inorganic materials) has now been revolutionized the area of cancer research for rational design of nanomedicine by surface engineering with targeting ligands. The small tunable size and surface properties of nanomedicines provide the opportunity of multiple payloads and multivalent-ligand targeting to achieve drug efficacy even in MDR cancer. Further, effort being carried out in recent time for novel nano-pharmaceutical design, which focuses on the delivery of therapeutic and diagnostic agent simultaneously called as theranostics to assess the progress of therapy in cancer. This review aimed to discuss about the physicochemical manipulation of cancer nanomedicine for rational design and recent progress in the area of surface engineering of nanomedicines to improve the efficacy of cancer chemotherapeutics in MDR cancer as well. Moreover, toxicity apprehension of the advanced functional materials used in nanomedicines design and exploited to achieve the drug targeting in cancer is also addressed. Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.net.