3D Printing in Development of Nanomedicines

Three-dimensional (3D) printing is gaining numerous advances in manufacturing approaches both at macro- and nanoscales. Three-dimensional printing is being explored for various biomedical applications and fabrication of nanomedicines using additive manufacturing techniques, and shows promising potential in fulfilling the need for patient-centric personalized treatment. Initial reports attributed this to availability of novel natural biomaterials and precisely engineered polymeric materials, which could be fabricated into exclusive 3D printed nanomaterials for various biomedical applications as nanomedicines. Nanomedicine is defined as the application of nanotechnology in designing nanomaterials for different medicinal applications, including diagnosis, treatment, monitoring, prevention, and control of diseases. Nanomedicine is also showing great impact in the design and development of precision medicine. In contrast to the “one-size-fits-all” criterion of the conventional medicine system, personalized or precision medicines consider the differences in various traits, including pharmacokinetics and genetics of different patients, which have shown improved results over conventional treatment. In the last few years, much literature has been published on the application of 3D printing for the fabrication of nanomedicine. This article deals with progress made in the development and design of tailor-made nanomedicine using 3D printing technology.1

Three-dimensional printing-based design of perfusable vascular construct using crosslinkedbioink

Nanomedicine is the application of nanotechnology in various field of medicine such as site-specific drug delivery, theranostic tools, and in drug repurposing. Nanomedicine is a relatively recent field, extensively being explored for research and innovative ideas by scientists of different disciplines. Nanomaterials are also being used in combination as a hybrid to explore new possibilities such as dual targeting, stimuli responsive release, and theranostic applications.

nanomedicines are a promising tool for various theranostic application in infectious diseases, noncommunicable fatal diseases such as brain tumors, multidrug resistance (MDR) tumors, infectious diseases, metastatic tumors and relapsed tumors that are highly challengeable for clinical studies, crossing of therapeutic agents to brain (BBB), dodging the MDR pathways, inhibiting migratory tumor cells, immunostimulation, antiangiogenic activity, and removal of the cancer stem cells. Various nanotechnology, including nanoparticles (lipid nanoparticles, polymer nanoparticles, metallic nanoparticles), dendrimers, nanodiamonds, nanocrystals, quantum dots, carbon nanotubes, nanogels, nanoemulsions, etc., due to their extra small size with confined size distribution, are being explored for designing various nanomedicines. These nanomedicines are also being fabricated using 3D printing technology as precision medicines to satisfy individual specific needs by using apparent surface functional design along with bioconjugation and extreme biocompatibility. Three-dimensional printing provides the ease in preparation and tailoring of micro- and nanoparticles conjugated with functional antibodies in a continuous mixing process with desired features. 1

1.Jain K, Shukla R, Yadav A, Ujjwal RR, Flora SJS. 3D Printing in Development of Nanomedicines. Nanomaterials. 2021; 11(2):420. https://doi.org/10.3390/nano11020420