nanotechnology has changed our lives dramatically and influenced every sector of the research, engineering and also business community. nanotechnology is a rapidly growing science of producing and utilizing nano-sized particles, that measure in nanometer. in other words, nanotechnology is the art of characterizing, manipulating and organizing matter systemically, at the nanometer scale, which h...

As the most common cause of dementia among the elderly results in cognitive and ‎behavioral impairment, Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is characterized with aggregation of senile ‎plaques (Beta-amyloid protein), cortical atrophy and ventricular enlargement. Unfortunately, ‎conventional methods like acetyl cholinesterase inhibitor drugs, are not so effective owing to ‎restrictive...

Glioma, as a primary tumor of central nervous system, is the main cause of death in patients with brain cancer. Therefore, development of an efficient strategy for treatment of glioma is worthy. The aim of the current study was to develop a SRL peptide-coated dendrimer as a novel dual gene delivery system for targeting the LRP receptor, an up-regulated gene in both BBB and glioma cells. To perf...

Pathophysiological molecules in the extracellular environment offer excellent targets that can be exploited for designing drug targeting systems. Matrix metalloproteases (MMPs) are a family of extracellular proteolytic enzymes that are characterized by their overexpression or overactivity in several pathologies. Over the last two decades, the MMP literature reveals heightened interest in the re...

Hollow mesoporous silica nanoparticle (HMSN) has recently gained increasing interests due to their tremendous potential as an attractive nano-platform for cancer imaging and therapy. However, possibly due to the lack of efficient in vivo targeting strategy and well-developed surface engineering techniques, engineering of HMSN for in vivo active tumor targeting, quantitative tumor uptake assessm...

pH-sensitive drug targeting using nanoparticles for cancer chemotherapy have been spotlighted in recent decades. Graft copolymer composed of poly (L-histidine) (PHS) and dextran (DexPHS) was synthesized and pH-sensitive nanoparticles were fabricated for pH-responsive drug delivery of doxorubicin (DOX). Nanoparticles of DexPHS showed pH-sensitive changes in particle sizes and drug release behavi...

Normal vision depends on the optimal function of ocular barriers and intact membranes that selectively regulate the environment of ocular tissues. Novel pharmacotherapeutic modalities have aimed to overcome such biological barriers which impede efficient ocular drug delivery. To determine the impact of ocular barriers on research related to ophthalmic drug delivery and targeting, herein we prov...

     Among the numerous nanosized drug delivery systems currently under investigation, carbon nanotubes (CNTs), regardless of being single or multiple-walled, offer several advantages and are considered as promising candidates for drug targeting. Despite the valuable potentials of CNTs in drug delivery, their toxicity still remains an important issue. After the PEGylation of single-walled CNTs ...

The scaffold of nanoparticles (broadly defined as having a size range of 1-100 nm) presents a convenient platform to incorporate multiple functionalities into one single particle for cancer imaging and therapeutics. Whether hollow inside or not, a single nanoparticle can encapsulate a large payload of imaging probes, anticancer drug molecules, or both. On the surface, tumor-specific targeting m...

In response to the challenges of cancer chemotherapeutics, including poor physicochemical properties, low tumor targeting, insufficient tumor cell internalization/bioavailability, and side effects, we developed a unique tumor-targeted micellar drug-delivery platform. Using paclitaxel as a model therapeutic, a nanopreparation composed of a matrix metalloproteinase 2 (MMP2)-sensitive self-assembl...