About this Research Topic

Background

Inflammation is a complex biological response involving multiple immune cell types, which has been found to play critical roles in a large number of different diseases. Inflammatory diseases, including acute disorders such as acute lung injury and acute respiratory distress syndrome, and chronic disorders such as cancer and arteriosclerosis, remain a substantial threat to human life and health. How to effectively, specifically, and rapidly prevent, diagnose and cure these inflammatory diseases is a major challenge in the field of pharmacology.

Taking advantage of their physical, chemical and biological features, novel nanomaterials have been designed to target specific features of different inflammatory diseases for the development of preventive, diagnostic, and therapeutic strategies. In recent years, FDA have been approving an increasing number of nanomedical application in clinic against some important inflammatory diseases including cancer, fungal/protozoal/virus/bacterial infection, and rheumatoid arthritis. Nanomedicine and biomedical nanomaterials are exciting and growing areas of research with great potential against the threat posed by inflammatory diseases.

This Research Topic focuses on functional nanomaterials in the development of novel preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic strategies against acute and chronic inflammatory diseases, with an emphasis on inflammation-targeting properties of pharmacological nanomaterials. The design of functional nanomaterials to target specific disease characteristics requires expertise in nanotechnology and understanding of the biological, immunological and pathological characteristics of inflammatory diseases; this could lead to the development of novel treatments for inflammatory diseases. For example, nanomaterials-based vaccine delivery systems could enhance the immunogenicity of a vaccine by enhancing vaccine delivery and presentation to the immune cells. Functional nanomaterials can also be applied for diagnostic purposes, for instance by utilizing their biochemical properties in the development of new imaging techniques. Furthermore, nanomaterial-based formulations can be used to enhance the therapeutic efficiency of existing drugs in the fight against inflammatory diseases. The development of novel preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic nanomedicines and nanomaterials targeted towards inflammatory processes could therefore dramatically benefit patients with inflammatory diseases in years to come.

This Research Topic aims to gather together cutting edge research on nanomedicine and nanomaterials including nanovaccines, nanobiosensors, and nanodelivery systems. This collection will highlight research expertise in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of inflammatory diseases by nanoscale pharmacology. Such application of nanomaterials in acute inflammatory diseases such as infection, chronic inflammatory diseases such as cancer, and other important inflammatory diseases are very welcome. Original research, perspectives, and reviews are welcomed. Subtopics may include but are not limited to:

• Nanomaterial-assisted drug delivery strategies
• Nanovaccines
• Nanomaterial-based bio-sensing techniques
• Novel nanotherapeutic strategies
• Pharmacokinetics of therapeutic nanomaterials
• Toxicology of nanomedicines
• Nanomaterial-cell interactions

Keywords: Nanomaterials, inflammatory disease, prevention, diagnosis, therapy

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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