Abstract
Creating a magic bullet that can selectively kill cancer cells while sparing nearby healthy cells remains one of the most ambitious objectives in pharmacology. Nanomedicine, which relies on the use of nanotechnologies to fight disease, was envisaged to fulfill this coveted goal. Despite substantial progress, the structural complexity of therapeutic vehicles impedes their broad clinical application. Novel modular manufacturing approaches for engineering programmable drug carriers may be able to overcome some fundamental limitations of nanomedicine. We discuss how bottom-up synthetic biology principles, empowered by microfluidics, can palliate current drug carrier assembly limitations, and we demonstrate how such a magic bullet could be engineered from the bottom up to ultimately improve clinical outcomes for patients.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 445-459 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | Trends in Biotechnology |
| Volume | 39 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| Early online date | 7 Sept 2020 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - May 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors acknowledge funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF; grant agreement 13XP5073A – PolyAntiBak) and the MaxSynBio Consortium which is jointly funded by the BMBF and the Max Planck Society. They also acknowledge the support (from the SFB 1129 ) of the German Research Foundation and the Volkswagenstiftung (priority call ‘Life?’). J.P.S. is the Weston Visiting Professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science and part of the excellence cluster CellNetworks at the University of Heidelberg. F.L. acknowledges the support of the Alexander von Humboldt foundation . O.S. acknowledges support from the Heidelberg Biosciences International Graduate School and the Max Planck School Matter to Life. O.S. is the Meurer Visiting Professor at the University of Bristol. The Max Planck Society is appreciated for its general support.
Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF; grant agreement 13XP5073A ? PolyAntiBak) and the MaxSynBio Consortium which is jointly funded by the BMBF and the Max Planck Society. They also acknowledge the support (from the SFB 1129) of the German Research Foundation and the Volkswagenstiftung (priority call ?Life??). J.P.S. is the Weston Visiting Professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science and part of the excellence cluster CellNetworks at the University of Heidelberg. F.L. acknowledges the support of the Alexander von Humboldt foundation. O.S. acknowledges support from the Heidelberg Biosciences International Graduate School and the Max Planck School Matter to Life. O.S. is the Meurer Visiting Professor at the University of Bristol. The Max Planck Society is appreciated for its general support.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Authors
Keywords
- bottom-up synthetic biology
- droplet-based microfluidics
- drug delivery
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This is the final published version of the article (version of record). It first appeared online via Elsevier at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tibtech.2020.08.002 . Please refer to any applicable terms of use of the publisher.