ISBN : 978-93-85073-24-3 functions. A nanocarrier offers a number of advantages making it an ideal drug delivery vehicle (Fig 1.1). • Nanocarriers can better deliver drugs to tiny areas within the body [85]. • It represents engineering of particles, which are smaller than 100 nanometers. • Nanotechnology is so complementary to biotechnology that promises to bridge the gaps between ‘the structure’ and ‘the function’ of biomolecules as well as between ‘human physiology’ and ‘pathophysiology’. • This allows the engineering of products on a comparable scale to nature such as biologicals like proteins, DNA and viruses, which are of the order of 10’s of nanometers in size and cells and cellular assemblies of the order of 1000’s of nanometers. • It involves overlap of biotech, nanotech, and information technology, might result in many important applications in life sciences including areas of gene therapy, drug delivery, imaging, biomarkers, biosensors and novel drug discovery techniques [8688]. • It also offers an attractive solution for transformation of biosystems, and provides a broad platform in several areas of bioscience [89-90]. • Nanocarriers overcome the resistance offered by the physiological barriers in the body because efficient delivery of drug to various parts of the body is directly affected by particle size. • Nanocarriers aid in efficient drug delivery to improve aqueous solubility of poorly soluble drugs [91-92], that enhance bioavailability [93] for timed release of drug molecules, and precise drug targeting [94-95]. • The surface properties of nanocarriers can be modified for targeted drug delivery [96-97] e.g. small molecules, proteins, peptides, and nucleic acids loaded nanoparticles are not recognized by immune system and efficiently targeted to particular tissue types [98]. • Targeted nano drug carriers reduce drug toxicity and provide more efficient drug distribution [99]. 4
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