Application of nanomedicine in wound healing

Abstract

Emergence of new materials and technology and their broad application is invariably identified as the symbol of scientific progress in any era. With recent advancement and development of nanotechnology, it has been made possible to engineer many kinds of materials into various shapes and sizes at the nanometer level. The sizes of these nanoparticles usually vary from 1 nm to 100 nm, which is much smaller than the generally targeted cells in the organism (Fig. 21.1), and will exhibit remarkably differential and amazing biological activities due to their unusual physical and chemical properties due to enhanced surface area to volume ratio for a given mass [1, 2]. This means that nano-sized particles are more likely to have increased cell surface interactions and to gain access into internal cell environments, resulting in significant biomedical effect or efficacy. In recent years, burgeoning interest in the medical applications of nanotechnology has led to the emergence of a new scientific field—Nanomedicine [3–8]. Nanomedicine, as the most important cross-link subject between nanoscience and biomedicine, is defined as the process of disease prevention, diagnosis, and therapeutic using nanomaterials or nanotechnology [9, 10].