Medicine Questions

1. Nanomedicine efficacy and toxicity is influenced by how nanoparticles distribute in the human body. Provide a detailed summary of the main processes defining nanoparticle pharmacokinetics.   
2. The enhanced permeation and retention effect (EPR) is important for cancer nanomedicines. Describe the EPR effect and discuss how nanomedicines can be designed to achieve targeting using this effect.
3.    Nanomaterials may be designed to either interact with the immune system or avoid it entirely. Discuss approaches that may be employed to avoid/interact with the immune system. Provide examples of diseases where these interactions may be beneficial/problematic
4. Nanoparticles have a number of physico-chemical characteristics that may influence how they interact with certain biological systems, either favorably or unfavorably. Give three examples of physico-chemical characteristics explaining how these characteristics may be related to nanoparticle interaction with biological systems.

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The physicochemical properties of nanoparticles and biological barriers influence the behavior and availability of nanomedicines in the human body. The shape of nanoparticles determines the uptake of the drug by the cell. For example, HeLa cells respond best to rods and spheres, while cylinder and cube-shaped particles have the lowest uptake levels. The shape also determines nanomedicines’ toxicity. For example, nanospheres and nanowires are reportedly less toxic than nanoplates. Similarly, research has reported that spheres and cubes are less toxic to zebrafish embryo compared to zinc nano-sticks. The size of the nanoparticles plays a significant role in their pharmacokinetics. The literature suggests that the size that equals 10–12 nm is optimal for nanomedicines because it results in high...