Varshney H. M., Mohan Shailender
ABSTRACT
Size reduction is one of most fundamental unit operation which is of prime importance in pharmacy. It helps in improving stability and bioavailability, reducing toxicity, enhancing release and providing better formulation opportunities for drug.
In the recent trends, the drugs in nanometer size range have found to increase the performance in variety of dosage forms. The word ‘nano’ is a Latin word, which means ‘dwarf’. Nano size refers to 10-9 of a particular unit thus nanometer is 10-9 of a meter.
Nanotechnology is the science that deals with the processes that occurs at molecular level and of nanolength scale size. Nanotechnology has shown tremendous progress in physics, electronics and engineering but biomedical and pharmaceutical fields are yet to be explored, although, it has powerful impact in various medical fields such as biophysics, molecular biology, bioengineering, cardiology, oncology, ophthalmology, endocrinology immunology etc. Nanotechnology provides intelligent system, devices and materials for better pharmaceutical applications.
The current status of nanotechnology in pharmaceutical field includes development of Nanomedicine, tissue engineering, nanorobots, biosensors, biomarkers etc. Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology provides opportunities to improve materials, medical devices and help to develop new technology where existing and more conventional technologies may be reaching their limits.
Thus in the coming years advancements in this field will led to the improved form of drug delivery as well as other prospects of medicine and pharmacy.
Keywords: Nanotechnology, Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology, Nanoscale, Nanoparticles, Bionanotechnology.