Recent and future advances in anticancer drug delivery: an interview with Khaled Greish

Therapeutic Applications of Nanomedicine: Recent Developments and Future Perspectives

The concept of nanomedicine has evolved significantly in recent decades, leveraging the unique phenomenon known as the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect. This has facilitated major advancements in targeted drug delivery, imaging, and individualized therapy through the integration of nanotechnology principles into medicine. Numerous nanomedicines have been developed and applied for disease treatment, with a particular focus on cancer therapy. Recently, nanomedicine has been utilized in various advanced fields, including diagnosis, vaccines, immunotherapy, gene delivery, and tissue engineering. Multifunctional nanomedicines facilitate concurrent medication delivery, therapeutic monitoring, and imaging, allowing for immediate responses and personalized treatment plans. This review concerns the major advancement of nanomaterials and their potential applications in the biological and medical fields. Along with this, we also mention the various clinical translations of nanomedicine and the major challenges that nanomedicine is currently facing to overcome the clinical translation barrier.

Artemisinin derivative SM934 in the treatment of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases: therapeutic effects and molecular mechanisms

Artemisinin and its derivatives are the well-known anti-malarial drugs derived from a traditional Chinese medicine. In addition to antimalarial, artemisinin and its derivatives possess distinguished anti-cancer, anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-viral activities, but the poor solubility and low bioavailability hinder their clinical application. In the last decades a series of new water-soluble and oil-soluble derivatives were synthesized. Among them, we have found a water-soluble derivative β-aminoarteether maleate (SM934) that exhibits outstanding suppression on lymphocytes proliferation in immunosuppressive capacity and cytotoxicity screening assays with 35-fold higher potency than dihydroartemisinin. SM934 displays significant therapeutic effects on various autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, including systemic lupus erythematosus, antiphospholipid syndrome nephropathy, membranous nephropathy, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease, and dry eye disease. Here, we summarize the immunomodulatory effects, anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidative and anti-fibrosis activities of SM934 in disease-relevant animal models and present the probable pharmacological mechanisms involved in its therapeutic efficacy. This review also delineates a typical example of natural product-based drug discovery, which might further vitalize natural product exploration and development in pharmacotherapy.