Translational research for cancer therapy based on medical nanorobotics

尽管大多数癌症是局部性的(85%)，但递送系统仍然依赖仅基于物理特征和生化原理的系统性循环载体，这导致只有一小部分总剂量到达活跃的肿瘤细胞。事实上，全身给药，加上治疗载体在肿瘤组织中扩散得更深的限制，以及无法靶向所有肿瘤活性细胞，都是实现局部癌症最佳治疗结果的主要障碍。因此，Paul Ehrlich的“神奇子弹”概念刺激了对能够直接到达预期目标的治疗剂的研究。“神奇子弹”的概念仍然被认为是在不影响非靶向组织的情况下最大化给定药物分子的治疗效果的最终方法。但现实是，从来没有一种药物或药物输送系统可以直接到达体内的靶点，也没有一种方法能提供比到达预定靶点的总给药剂量的几分之一更好的效果。在过去的15年里，我们一直是药物输送新范式的先驱和领导者，其中纳米技术与机器人原理相结合，开发了医学纳米机器人技术，使新的导航治疗剂能够直接到达治疗部位，同时节省了健康组织，从而提供了一种新的方法，可以被认为是局部癌症的现代版本的“神奇子弹”。通过这样做，我们预计对于给定的治疗剂，治疗效果将呈指数级增加，同时将患者的毒性水平降至最低，从而减少住院时间，潜在的医疗保健节省，并为经历更有效治疗效果的患者提供更好的生活质量，同时将转移风险降至最低。在临床医生的积极参与下，将进行转化研究工作，并将开发基于我们独特的医疗纳米机器人技术的介入程序，以提供解决方案和成本效益高的方法，更好地响应未满足的临床需求，增加临床医生的工具箱，同时提供更多治疗癌症的选择。

Although the large majority of cancers are localized (>85%), delivery systems still rely on systematically circulating vectors based primarily on physical characteristics and biochemical principles alone which result to only a small fraction of the total administered dose reaching the active tumor cells. Indeed, systemic delivery combined with the limitation of therapeutic vectors to diffuse deeper in tumor tissues and the inability to target all tumor active cells are known to be major obstacles to achieve optimal treatment outcomes for localized cancers. As such, Paul Ehrlich's “magic bullet” concept has stimulated research for therapeutic agents with the capability to go straight to their intended targets. The “magic bullet” concept is still considered the ultimate approach to maximize the therapeutic effects of a given drug molecule without affecting non-target tissues. But the reality is that there has never been a drug or drug delivery system that goes straight to the target in the body, and no approach has provided anything better than a few percent of the total administered dose reaching the intended target site. Over the last 15 years, we have been the pioneers and the leaders in a new paradigm in drug delivery where nanotechnology has been combined with principles of robotics to develop the medical nanorobotic technologies enabling new navigable therapeutic agents to go straight to the site of treatment while sparing healthy tissues, hence providing a new approach that could be considered as a modern version of the "magic bullet" for localized cancers. By doing so, we expect that the therapeutic effects will be increased exponentially for a given therapeutic agent while minimizing the level of toxicity for the patients, resulting in less hospital stays, potential savings in health cares, and a better quality of life for the patients experiencing more efficient therapeutic effects with minimum risk of metastasis. With the active participation of clinicians, translational research efforts will be conducted and interventional procedures based on our unique medical nanorobotic technologies will be developed to provide solutions and cost effective approaches that better respond to unmet clinical needs, adding to the tool box of clinicians while providing more options to treat cancer.