BioWorld International Correspondent

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM - The European Science Foundation set out a plan to develop and promote medical applications of nanotechnology and called on EU governments to make the investment needed to translate disparate elements from proteomics, genomics, drug delivery, diagnostics and imaging into a coherent framework for nanomedicine.

To date the impact of nanotechnology on health care is patchy, with largely unrelated advances in diagnostics, imaging agents and drug delivery techniques. But the foundation's two-year investigation of the field concluded that medical applications of nanotechnology - or nanomedicine - has the power to deliver a paradigm shift in health care and make it possible to monitor people on the basis of known genetic predispositions, diagnose disease before symptoms, administer precisely targeted drugs and use noninvasive imaging tools to demonstrate effective treatment.

But to achieve that, many unrelated elements from physics, chemistry and biology need to be brought together and integrated.

"Bringing together the interdisciplinary components and getting them working truly in collaboration is a key challenge," said Ruth Duncan of the Center for Polymer Therapeutics at Cardiff University, who chaired the investigation.

Beyond that, it is necessary to provide government agencies and policy-makers with a route map that will enable them to take a strategic approach to investing in nanomedicine, and ensure the regulatory agencies and related industrial and commercial interests are quickly able to transfer advances in nanomedicine into general use.

"Then, of course, the public is very important. We need to explain the opportunities vs. the risks, and generate and understanding of what nanomedicine means," Duncan said, speaking at a meeting held earlier this month to launch the report.

The first task for the 30 academics and industrialists who compiled the report was to define the field - it covers the application of nanoscale tools and knowledge across five subdisciplines of therapeutics and drug delivery: clinical, regulatory and toxicology issues, materials and devices, imaging and analytical tools.

According to the report "Forward Look Study on Nanomedicine," Europe has many of the building blocks needed to create a coherent structure for nanomedicine. There are multiple funding sources, many of which are tagged "nano," there is a talent base, a number of research institutes with an interest in the field, a burgeoning industrial sector and a growing body of clinical expertise with nanosized drug delivery systems, including liposomes, antibodies and polymers, in routine clinical use.

"But as ever, there is a failure to translate this across, because Europe is lacking a long-term strategy for health care covering drug development and device development that is funded over the long time scales involved in getting new drugs to market," Duncan said.

In addition, there is a fragmentation of effort, with most work being carried out on a national level when the need is for an alignment of regional, national and pan-European research. There is not sufficient integration between clinical and basic research to enable advances to be translated from the laboratory to the clinic.

Also, new research is required to improve understanding of their toxicology, both within the patient and the environmental impact of the release of nanoparticles.

Since nanomedicines are expected to be designed around a clear understanding of the molecular interactions involved in particular disease areas, the regulators will need to establish a case-by-case approach to approvals.