Medical Advantages of Nanotechnology

Video Transcript

"Hello, this is Lloyd Tran, I'm the director of The California Institute of NanoTechnology. There are many medical advantages of using nano-technology. For example in the cancer treatment one of the major challenge of developing chemo-therapy drug is how to develop a drug which is very effective, but the same time to reduce the toxicity of the medication. Many cancer patients suffering from undesirable side affects such as, hair loss, nose, ear, even have a hot treble by receiving intravenous infusing of chemo-therapy, then many patients would rather not use the taxol, even though it have a lot of therapeutic value. So the new company had developed the way to use taxol in any particle size. For example if you cut down the size of the nano particle composition of a taxol. You could reduce the toxicity about three or four times, and the same time maintain the effectivicity of the drug. Besides medical formulation, now technology have to use for drug release example. The challenge of medical treatment is how to deliver the medication to the target organs without give a lot of medication to the patient, using liposome and nanocrystaliposome one can develop a nano composites, including a payload of cancer drugs or some other medical treatment, and by coating that with some certain antibodies we can inject the medication into the body, and we hope that the medication can drive it to the target, and when it arrive to target it begin to release the medication in a controlled fashion, with a controlled release targeted drug systems. And the technology is not perfect, but it has to be developed in clinical trial. The FDA is looking very closely, and hopefully we can have some implication approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Besides drug delivery medication, we talk about the ability to implant new treatment to the brain of some patients who have neurological diseases. By using an impractical, one can develop a new medication that can cross the blood-brain barrier with ability to kill, to treat, and to manipulate the way things works in the brain system. This is Lloyd Tran with the California Institute of NanoTechnology"