Nanotheranostics for Personalized Medicine

The application of nanotechnology in the biomedical field, known as nanomedicine, has gained much interest in the recent past, as one of the strategies for selective drug delivery and diagnostic purposes. The nanotheranostic approach aims to combine both therapeutic and imaging/diagnostic functionalities; and is characterized by a strong pluridisciplinarity where the chemistry of materials, bioconjugate chemistry, pharmaceutical technology, drug delivery, imaging, and pharmacology work together. Nanotheranostics combines simultaneous non-invasive diagnosis and treatment of diseases with the exciting possibility to monitor drug release and distribution in real time, which could optimize treatment outcomes in cancer and other severe diseases. Clinical applications of nanotheranostics would enable earlier detection and treatment of diseases, and earlier assessment of the response; thus allowing to identify patients which would potentially respond to therapy and have higher possibilities of a favorable outcome.Nanotheranostics for Personalized Medicine provides an integrated and transdisciplinary description of nanotheranostics. Its coverage includes the principles of imaging techniques and concrete examples of advances and challenges in the development of nanotheranostics for personalized medicine.This book is written for advanced undergraduates, graduates, as well as experimental researchers in academia or the industry with an interest in this emerging concept in the nanomedicine world.