Editorial Current Drug Metabolism, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 00 1
Editorial
Global Trends for Nanotechnological Approaches in Various Health Issues – Part 1
Understanding complex human diseases and striving to ultimately develop effective treatments can be considered a scientific race. For millions around the world, particularly those suffering chronic progressive degenerative disorders, it is a desperate race to extend their sur- vival and lessen their suffering. For those in Government and public policy it is additionally a race to mitigate burgeoning and unsustainable health care costs. Science moves most efficiently forward when undertaken collaboratively, in much the same manner that athletes can more quickly cover a distance as a relay team rather than as an individual. Collaborations across diverse scientific disciplines can very often bring new insights and technology from one field to another with radicle results in relation to “bench-to-bedside’ innovations impacting human health – an excellent example is the impact of nanotechnology innovations on the medical sciences. In this special issue of Current Drug Me- tabolism (CDM), contributing authors evaluate the current progress and future outlooks of different nanotechnological approaches on public health issues that include neurodegenerative disorders (NDs), particularly Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD), cancer and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).
There is mounting irrefutable evidence that NDs and T2DM have become two of the current greatest dilemmas facing both the developed and undeveloped economies of the world. Impacting numerous millions worldwide and already causing healthcare disarray, the escalating fraction of the population that is elderly that are exquisitely vulnerable to NDs and the alarming rise in the incidence of T2DM from child- hood, through middle age to the aged are combining to become a ‘perfect storm’. Can innovative scientific technologies mitigate the conflu- ence of these factors? – In this regard, the focus of the current special issue is nanotechnology application to the medical sciences to improve health outcomes and scientific understanding of disease processes. In the invitation to potential authors for this hot issue of CDM, I requested that they provide up to date articles that deliver compelling analyses of how nanotechnology has impacted features such as abnormalities in the level of critical enzymes, hormones, peptides, inflammatory modulators, microbiota, bacterial/viral infections and insulin signaling sys- tems involved in disease progression. The titles of subtopics published in volume 1 of the special issue of CDM are presented in Table 1 (based on the date of acceptance of the articles following their independent peer-review and revision). From these titles, it is clear that this special issue of CDM on nanotechnological approaches in relation to drug development and clinical disease progression is of broad scientific interest across a number of fields and disciplines, and is well worth reading.
On a personal level, I wish to end this editorial by thanking Chandra Prakash, the Editor-in- Chief of CDM, as well as Beenish Anwer, the Managing Editor, and all the contributing authors who have passionately responded to my request to provide thought-provoking articles (Ta- ble 1). I furthermore extend my thanks to all peer-reviewers for their time and expertise in constructively evaluating and revising individual contributions to a consistently high level of excellence. Last but not least, I am highly appreciative to Nigel H. Greig (Chief, Drug Design &
Development Section, Intramural Research Program, National Institute on Aging, National Institute Health, USA) for his support and editing of this editorial.
Table 1. Brief information about subtopics published in this volume 1 of the special issue of CDM
Corresponding authors Affiliations Title Key words
Mohammad Amjad Kamal
King Fahd Medical Research Center, King Abdulaziz University, Saudi
Arabia;/ Enzymoic, Australia
A synopsis of nano-technological ap- proaches toward anti-epilepsy therapy:
present and future research implications
Epilepsy; Liposomes; Nano-emulsions;
Polymeric; Nanoparticles; Solid-lipid;
Nanoparticles; Magnetic; Nanoparticles;
Therapy
Aabgeena Naeem Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Life Sciences, Aligarh Muslim
University, India
Therapeutic Interventions for the Sup- pression of Alzheimer’s Disease: Quest
for a Remedy
A peptide; Alzheimer’s disease; Amyloid fibrils; Protein aggregates; Nanotech-
nological approach;
Mahmood Rasool Center of Excellence in Genomic Medicine Research, King Abdulaziz
University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Nanoparticle-based therapy in genomics Health; diseases; Gene therapy; Nanopar- ticles; Gold Nanoparticles; Cancer;
Shazi Shakil Department of Bio-engineering, Integral University, India
Nanobiotechnological Approaches Against Multidrug Resistant Bacterial
Pathogens: An Update
Nanotechnology; Multiple drug resistant bacteria, Nanoparticles; Staphylococcus
aureus; Antimicrobial drugs;
2 Current Drug Metabolism, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 00 Editorial Table (1) contd….
Corresponding authors Affiliations Title Key words
Pasupuleti Visweswara Rao
Faculty of Agrobased Industry, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan
Recent advances in nanotechnology- based diagnosis and treatments of
diabetes
Characteristics of Nanomedicine; Diabe- tes; treatment; Glucose monitoring; Insulin
administration
Ghulam Md Ashraf King Fahd Medical Research Center, King Abdulaziz University, Saudi
Arabia
Application of proteomic tools in mod- ern nanotechnological approaches to-
wards the effective management of neurodegenerative disorders
Nanotechnology; Neurological disorders;
Proteomics; Nano-techniques; Nano- applications; Nano-drugs; Disposition
Muhammad Imran Naseer
Center of Excellence in Genomic Medicine Research, King Abdulaziz
University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Recent developments in nanomedicines for management of various health issues via metabolism and physico-chemical
properties
Nanomedicines; Cancer; Neurodegenera- tive disorders; Gene therapy; Liposomes;
Quantum dots; Silver and gold nanoparti- cles
Sohail Akhter Department of Pharmaceutics, Utrecht Institute of Pharmaceutical
Sciences, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Role of Graphene nano-composites in Cancer Therapy: Theranostic Applica- tions, Metabolic Fate and Toxicity
Issues
Graphene; Graphene oxide; Nanomedi- cine; Inorganic; Nanoparticles; Cancer therapy; Theranostics; Metabolism; Dispo-
sition; Biodistribution and Excretion
Mohammad Amjad Kamal Guest Editor King Fahd Medical Research Center King Abdulaziz University Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Tel: +61-2-98644812 E-mail: [email protected]
DISCLAIMER: The above article has been published in Epub (ahead of print) on the basis of the materials provided by the author. The Editorial Department reserves the right to make minor modifications for further improvement of the manuscript.
