Translational research for cancer therapy based on medical nanorobotics

尽管绝大多数癌症是局部的（约85%），但给药系统仍然依赖于主要基于物理特性和生化原理的系统循环载体，这导致只有一小部分总给药剂量到达活性肿瘤细胞。事实上，系统递送加上治疗载体在肿瘤组织中扩散较深的局限性以及无法靶向所有肿瘤活性细胞是实现局部癌症最佳治疗结果的主要障碍。因此，保罗·埃利希的“灵丹妙药”概念刺激了治疗剂的研究，这些治疗剂具有直接到达预定目标的能力。“魔弹”概念仍然被认为是在不影响非靶组织的情况下最大化给定药物分子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能直接到达体内的目标，也没有任何一种方法能比总剂量的百分之几更好地到达预定的目标部位。在过去的15年里，我们一直是药物递送新范式的先驱和领导者，纳米技术与机器人技术原理相结合，开发出医疗纳米机器人技术，使新的可导航治疗药物直接到达治疗部位，同时保留健康组织，因此提供了一种新的方法，可以被认为是局部癌症的现代版“魔弹”。通过这样做，我们期望对于给定的治疗剂，治疗效果将呈指数级增长，同时将患者的毒性水平降至最低，从而减少住院时间，节省潜在的医疗保健费用，并为患者提供更好的生活质量，以获得更有效的治疗效果，同时降低转移风险。在临床医生的积极参与下，我们将开展转化研究工作，开发基于我们独特的医学纳米机器人技术的介入程序，为临床未满足的需求提供解决方案和成本效益的方法，增加临床医生的工具箱，同时为治疗癌症提供更多选择。

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.