Imaging the intracellular degradation of biodegradable polymer nanoparticles

• Anne-Kathrin Barthel,
• Martin Dass,
• Melanie Dröge,
• Jens-Michael Cramer,
• Daniela Baumann,
• Markus Urban,
• Katharina Landfester,
• Volker Mailänder and
• Ingo Lieberwirth

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1905–1917, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.201

• ), University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstraße 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany 10.3762/bjnano.5.201 Abstract In recent years, the development of smart drug delivery systems based on biodegradable polymeric nanoparticles has become of great interest. Drug-loaded nanoparticles

• is not to be expected. Therefore, the degradation behavior of nano-sized PLLA materials should be very interesting as many drug delivery systems are currently being investigated for their use in vitro and in vivo. Investigations of in vivo degradation of PLLA are currently restricted to at least

• , biodegradable polymeric nanoparticles are a promising vehicle for smart drug delivery systems and to this regard, it is even more important to examine intracellular degradation dynamics of these bio-polymers. The objective of this work is to follow the fate of intracellular PLLA nanoparticles over a long time

Carbon-based smart nanomaterials in biomedicine and neuroengineering

• Antonina M. Monaco and
• Michele Giugliano

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1849–1863, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.196

• localise in the lungs, liver and spleen [79], and that the urinary system excrete them [80]. Hydrogels and thin-films based on NDs have also been used as drug delivery systems by virtue of their ease of surface functionalisation and small size. They have been reported for successfully delivering several

Biocompatibility of cerium dioxide and silicon dioxide nanoparticles with endothelial cells

• Claudia Strobel,
• Martin Förster and
• Ingrid Hilger

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1795–1807, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.190

• ]. SiO2 nanoparticles are employed in the fabrication of electric and thermal insulators [6], as drug-delivery systems in nanomedicine [7][8], as anticaking and thickener agents in food production [9][10], as well as in cosmetics, drugs and printer toners [11]. Human exposure to these nanoparticles arises

Nanodiamond-DGEA peptide conjugates for enhanced delivery of doxorubicin to prostate cancer

• Amanee D Salaam,
• Patrick Hwang,
• Roberus McIntosh,
• Hadiyah N Green,
• Ho-Wook Jun and
• Derrick Dean

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 937–945, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.107

• targeted drug delivery systems can provide an avenue to overcome these issues. Nanodiamonds (ND), in particular, have been researched over the past five years for use in various drug delivery systems but minimal work has been done that incorporates targeting capability. In this study, a novel targeted drug

Morphological characterization of fullerene–androsterone conjugates

• Alberto Ruiz,
• Margarita Suárez,
• Nazario Martin,
• Fernando Albericio and
• Hortensia Rodríguez

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 374–379, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.43

• ][7], nucleotides, sugars and steroids [8][9], have allowed the solubilization of these hybrid derivatives in aqueous media, thus enhancing certain biological activities. For the potential use of C60 derivatives as drug delivery systems, the size of the particles is important. In general, fast drug

Extracellular biosynthesis of gadolinium oxide (Gd₂O₃) nanoparticles, their biodistribution and bioconjugation with the chemically modified anticancer drug taxol

• Shadab Ali Khan,
• Sanjay Gambhir and
• Absar Ahmad

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 249–257, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.27

• fungus based approach for the synthesis of this material for the first time. We show that the thermophilic fungus Humicola sp. can be used for the synthesis of Gd2O3 nanoparticles at 50 °C. Since Gd2O3 nanoparticles have proved their value in site-specific drug delivery systems for cancer therapy, we

• relaxation, and can be useful as a multimodal contrast agent for in vivo imaging [5]. It can also be easily doped with other lanthanides and exploited as a fluorescent tag, thus replacing other fluorescent organic molecules. Gadolinium oxide nanoparticles are also employed in site-specific drug delivery

• systems for cancer therapy. Gadolinium compounds are used in neutron capture therapy (NCT) as an alternative for boron-10 [6][7]. NCT is mainly associated with tumor-specific delivery systems and involves the production of localized cytotoxic radiations by a non-radioactive nuclide delivered to tumor

En route to controlled catalytic CVD synthesis of densely packed and vertically aligned nitrogen-doped carbon nanotube arrays

• Slawomir Boncel,
• Sebastian W. Pattinson,
• Valérie Geiser,
• Milo S. P. Shaffer and
• Krzysztof K. K. Koziol

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 219–233, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.24

• be used as high surface area electrodes. Apart from this, the ‘bamboo’-like N-CNTs obtained here could provide a new opening in drug delivery systems due to their rigid ‘needle-like’ morphology. These N-CNTs with a high content of ferromagnetic nanoparticles could potentially serve as magnetically