Testing nanoparticles for angiogenesis-related disease: charting the fastest route to the clinic.

Recently, nanoparticles (NPs) have been established as ideal drug delivery vehicles for treating cancer. This is due to the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect that is a direct result of the angiogenic nature of the tumor tissue and its ability to sequester chemotherapeutics from healthy tissues. Ideal drug delivery nanocarriers will exploit the EPR effect, accumulate in the tumorous tissue, and be able to release the drugs at a high concentration where needed, thereby reducing undesirable side effects.

Designing a better theranostic nanocarrier for cancer applications.

Nanocarriers show incredible potential in theranostic applications as they offer diagnostic capabilities along with the ability to encapsulate and protect drugs from degradation, be functionalized with targeting moieties and be designed with controlled release mechanisms. Most clinically approved nanocarrier drugs are liposomal formulations. As such, considerable research has been directed towards designing liposomal carriers that can release their payloads via exogenous or endogenous triggers.

Nanoparticle accumulation in angiogenic tissues: towards predictable pharmacokinetics.

Nanoparticles are increasingly used in medical applications such as drug delivery, imaging, and biodiagnostics, particularly for cancer. The design of nanoparticles for tumor delivery has been largely empirical, owing to a lack of quantitative data on angiogenic tissue sequestration. Using fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, the deposition rate constants of nanoparticles into angiogenic blood vessel tissue are determined.

Photobleaching kinetics of Verteporfin and Lemuteporfin in cells and optically trapped multilamellar vesicles using two-photon excitation.

Verteporfin and Lemuteporfin are compared to examine the effect of their functional groups and therefore the localization in two-photon excitation (TPE) photodynamic therapy (PDT). We used singlet oxygen-related photobleaching of the sensitizers to assess TPE-induced singlet oxygen generation in multilamellar vesicles (MLVs) and U343 glioma cells under a variety of conditions. It was found that Lemuteporfin photobleached at a faster rate than Verteporfin in the majority of environments.