Nanomedicine: The Minuteness of Healing

Monday, 30 September 2019

Tiny particles that can fight cancer or that can easily pass through any interface within our body are a great promise for medicine. But there is little knowledge thus far about what exactly will happen to nanoparticles within our tissues and whether or not they can cause disease by themselves. Within an international research consortium, Empa scientists have now developed guidelines that should enable the safe development of nanoparticles for medical use.

The use of nanomaterials in medicine is a hot topic, for instance, in cancer therapy or diagnostics. Biomaterials such as tiny liposomes are loaded with drugs against breast cancer, pancreatic cancer or Kaposi’s sarcoma associated with HIV infection. Among inorganic nanomaterials there is, for example, colloidal silver, which inhibits the growth of microbial pathogens. Other nanoproducts stimulate our immune system or transport iron into our body. The minuscule size of the individual units in the range of a millionth of a millimeter is precisely what determines their billion-dollar potential on the world market.

Guidelines for implementing a safe-by-design approach for medicinal polymeric nanocarriers
PDF

Safe-by-design and EU fun... Contribution of the EU NanoSafetyCluster (NSC), supporting the SbD-study of the European Commission, March 2021 Editors: Andreas Falk, Flemming R. Cassee and Eva Valsami-Jones

The need for awareness an... Published in Nature Nanotechnology by the group of Alke Petri-Fink and Barbara Rothen-Rutishauer (www.nature.com/articles/s41565-023-01331-4). The authors discuss the safety concerns on handling and disposing nanomaterials, the possible

Pigments are Nano A webinar by contactpointnano.ch Nanomaterials are something new and innovative, right? Not necessarily: Certain nanomaterials were already in use in the Stone Age, long before mankind invented

Publications on Synthetic... Action plan Synthetic Nanomaterials Final report 2 September 2020 (only available in German and French) Opportunities and Risks of Nanomaterials Journal of Nanobiotechnology, 2017 Opportunities and Risks

Swiss NanoConvention Dr. Peter Wick represented contactpointnano and Empa at the Swiss NanoConvention in Neuchâtel (June 15-16, 2023). This year, the topics included nanoimaging, advanced manufacturing at nanoscale, smart

Guidelines: Safe-by-desig... A novel guideline document elaborated by the EU-consortium GoNanoBioMat and presented at the final dissemination event. The GoNanoBioMat framework is designed to elaborate current knowledge to small and medium-sized enterprises

Need help with the regist... eREACHNano is a new free web tool focused on helping small and medium-sized companies that may lack sufficient in-house expertise on the regulation covering nanomaterials.

Characterizing Nanopartic... Live Webinar, Thursday 19 November, 15:00 (Zürich). Guest speaker Dr. Sandor Balog, Details, Please register for this event using this link

Webinar: Open questions a... Face masks characterize the public spaces today. Together with other measures, such as social distancing, hand hygiene and contact tracing, masks actively contribute to fight the spread

The MACRAMÉ Project, a 36-months research and innovation action, funded by the European Commission’s Horizon Europe Framework Programme, commenced its ambitious, collaborative workprogramme on the characterisation and

Nanomedicine: The Minuteness of Healing

Related articles