Carbon Nanotube-Based Delivery Vectors for Cancer Therapy
A special issue of Pharmaceutics (ISSN 1999-4923). This special issue belongs to the section "Nanomedicine and Nanotechnology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2021) | Viewed by 4461
Special Issue Editor
Interests: nanomedicine; drug delivery; nanotoxicology; carbon-based nanomaterials; nanoparticles
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Cancer is a major public health problem, as it is the second leading cause of death globally. Although existing therapeutic modalities have shown great promise in cancer therapy, we are still far from the ideal cure that will not only improve patient life expectancy dramatically but also totally cure the body from its malignancy. While current therapies suffer from the issue of relapse after treatment, which could be due to drug resistance and poor drug uptake into the tumour, especially in the case of chemotherapeutics; cancer patients are still suffering from drastic side-effects post-treatment which are affecting their quality of life. In order to overcome these problems, the field of cancer drug delivery has evolved in recent years especially with the development of nano-sized drug delivery systems such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs). CNTs are graphene sheets rolled up into a tubular structure. Functionalised CNTs have shown an extraordinary and yet different cellular uptake fashion through what is known as the “Nanoneedle Hypothesis”, an energy-independent uptake mechanism. This meant that CNTs could improve the poor cellular uptake of chemotherapeutics as well as overcome drug resistance. Their unique cellular uptake mechanism could also be revolutionary in the delivery of therapeutic macromolecules, such as protein and nucleic acid, as they would avoid the endosome–lysosome compartment. In addition, their large surface area offers an enormous platform for the attachment of therapeutic and diagnostic molecules, and their unique thermal properties have shown great promise in hypothermia therapy.
Therefore, the use of CNTs in cancer therapy is a promising new strategy that can revolutionize cancer treatment. For this reason, we are proposing this Special Issue on “Carbon Nanotube-Based Delivery Vectors for Cancer Therapy”, which will highlight current advances in cancer drug delivery using carbon nanotubes and provide an overview of their potential in the delivery of cancer therapeutics ranging from small molecules to macromolecules but also their uniqueness in photothermal therapy. We invite articles on all aspects of CNT cancer therapy as briefly outlined in the Special Issue’s scope.
Dr. Hanene Ali-Boucetta
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- Carbon nanotubes for the delivery of small chemotherapeutics
- Carbon nanotubes for the delivery of macromolecules for cancer therapy (excluding gene therapy)
- Cancer gene therapy using carbon nanotubes
- The use of carbon nanotubes in hyperthermia treatment/photothermal therapy
- Cancer immunotherapy: What can carbon nanotubes offer?
- Cancer targeting using CNTs
- CNT potential in radiotherapy
