Surfactant-Based Anhydrous Nano Carrier System for Poorly Aqueous Soluble Anti-Cancer Drugs

Around 40% of new chemical entities and drugs are lipophilic or poor aqueous soluble in nature. Among them many anti-cancer drugs are also consist lipophilic properties. Available poorly water soluble anti-cancer drugs are paclitaxel, etoposide, and docetaxel. To get better stability of those anti-cancer drug via encapsulation and searching suitable carrier system for the controlled release, design and development requires of anhydrous nano carrier system. However, to deliver and entrapment of these kind of anti-cancer drugs are very essential with avoidance of water free preparation to get suitable controlled release application and achieve targeting site. The primary objective of proposed chapter is to develop and design novel stable anhydrous or non-aqueous nano emulsion carrier system and provide suitable carrier system for poorly aqueous soluble anti-cancer drugs. Another important aim is to design and develop better stabilizing agent by combining different type of surfactant, co-surfactant, and co-solvent.

Strategies to Suppress Tumor Angiogenesis and Metastasis, Overcome Multi-Drug Resistance in Cancer, Target Telomerase and Apoptosis Pathways

Cancer has been a worldwide topic in the medical field for a very long time. As angiogenesis is essential for tumor growth and metastasis, controlling tumor-associated angiogenesis is a promising tactic in limiting cancer progression. In cancer patients, multidrug resistance (MDR) is most widely used phenomenon by which cancer acquired resistance to chemotherapy. This resistance to chemotherapy occurs due to the formation of insulated tumor microenvironment which remains a major hurdle in the cure of various types of cancer. The mechanisms that cause malignant growth of cells include cell cycle control, signal transduction pathways, apoptosis, telomere stability, and interaction with the extracellular matrix. This chapter focuses on current strategies to suppress tumor angiogenesis for cancer therapy, various mechanisms involved in the development of MDR in cancer cells, which in turn will help us to identify possible strategies to overcome these MDR mechanisms and a variety of procedures that involves targeting apoptotic and telomerase pathways to suppress tumor progression.

Advancements in Cancer Therapeutics

In this chapter, computational approaches for the discovery of new drugs that are useful for diagnosis and treatment of disease will be described in three parts. MD technique uniquely supports protein design attempts by giving information about protein dynamics associated with atomic-level descriptions of the relationship between dynamics and function. The purpose of molecular docking is to provide an estimate of the ligand-receptor complex structure using computational methods. By this estimation, the mechanism of drug binding and action are described by determining the three-dimensional simulation of drug and drug-induced macrostructure. ADME characteristics are physicochemically significant descriptors and pharmacokinetically relevant properties used to design more effective drugs and new analogs. As a result, in-silico calculations can provide robust preliminary information as to drug activity and mechanism in the drug production process, as well as in vitro and in vivo studies.

Monocytes as Targets for Cancer Therapies

The importance of monocytes in modulating the lymphocyte dependent tumor necrosis is a target for cancer therapeutics. Monocytes produce a plethora of chemokine receptors. Lymphocyte to monocyte ratio is one of the negative factors in cancer patients. It is being targeted for treatment of abnormal lymphocytopenia and monocytosis in untreatable metastatic cancer patients. The aim of the chapter is to throw light on the circadian and psychological factors that modulate the progression of cancer and identify novel targets for controlling transformation of preneoplasms to neoplasms, invasiveness, and metastasis.

Phytopharmaceuticals in Cancer Treatment

Several modern treatment procedures have been received to battle malignancy with the point of limiting lethality. Phytopharmaceuticals are auxiliary metabolites of plant origin which exclusively contain one or more substances as active ingredients or might be a blend of them. Analysts have excitedly attempted to diminish the lethality of current chemotherapeutic agents either by consolidating them with herbals or in utilizing herbals alone. Synergy is a procedure where a few substances participate to reach a consolidated impact that is more prominent than the entirety of their different impacts. It may be viewed as a characteristic straight technique that has developed ordinarily by nature to acquire more efficacies at a low cost. This chapter aims to present the fundamental mechanism of the activity of phytochemicals in combination therapy. This chapter additionally features the remarkable synergistic impacts of plant-drug cooperation with an emphasis on anticancer strategies.

Cancer

Clinical trials are essential to govern the impact of a new possible treatment. It is utilized to determine the safety level and efficacy of a certain treatment. Clinical trial studies in cancer have provided successful treatment leading to longer survival span in the patients. The design of clinical trials for cancer has been done to find new ways to prevent, diagnose, treat, and manage symptoms of the disease. This chapter will provide detailed information on different aspects of clinical trials in cancer research. Protocols outlining the design and method to conduct a clinical trial in each phase will be discussed. The process and the conditions applied in each phase (I, II, and III) will be described precisely. The design of trials done in every aspect such as prevention, immunochemotherapy, diagnosis, and treatment to combat cancer will be illustrated. Also, recent innovations in clinical design strategies and principles behind it as well as the use of recent advances in artificial intelligence in reshaping key steps of clinical trial design to increase trial success rates.

Recent Research and Development in Stem Cell Therapy for Cancer Treatment

Cancer is the most prevalent and dangerous disease, and it leads to millions of deaths worldwide. Generally, metastatic cancer cells are not eradication by conventional surgical operative or chemotherapy-based treatment. New pathways have been established in various arenas such as unique biology, modulators regulatory mechanism, directional migration, self-renewal, etc. The individual pathways can be employed as therapeutic carriers, specific drug targeting, generation of acquiring nature immune cells, and regenerative medicine. The present scenario, stem cell therapy, focused on a promising tool for targeted cancer treatment. Stem cells also utilized as viruses and nanoparticles carry to enhance the primary therapeutic application in various dimensions such as cancer target therapy, regenerative medicine, immune-modulating therapy, and anticancer drugs screening. Furthermore, the rapid development in next-generation sequencing techniques and cancer genomics and proteomics analysis approaches are making therapeutics targeting organ-specific cancer more precise and efficient.

Advancements in Cancer Therapeutics

Targeted drug delivery in cancer treatment is a very convenient method for increasing the effectiveness of drugs and reducing their toxic side effects. Nano drug delivery systems have unique physical, chemical, mechanical, and optical properties. Nanoparticles, which have large surface areas and functional groups for the binding of therapeutic agents, benefit the drug distribution with nanoparticle formulations and can provide new features. They also enable personal oncology for diagnosis and treatment, which is appropriate for the personal molecular profile structures of cancer patients. The tumor-targeted active substances are attached to nanoparticles and the active substance loaded nanoparticles are targeted to the tumor area; these nanoparticles can be used with a high tendency to bind and specificity, to target tumor antigens or vessels. This chapter, besides traditional chemotherapy and radiotherapy methods in the field of cancer treatment, is aimed to give information about targeted drug delivery systems for cancer cell targeting without damaging normal tissues.

Apoptotic Pathway

Cancer is a major killer disease caused by uncontrolled growth and invasion of cells. Apoptosis is the cell's natural mechanism of death, which maintains tissue homeostasis. Any mutation that disturbs the apoptotic pathway leads to deregulated proliferation, resistance, and evasion of apoptosis. This evasion is one of the hallmarks of malignant developments. Apoptosis takes place via two distinct pathways i.e. the intrinsic and the extrinsic pathways. These pathways use cleaved caspases to execute apoptosis which in turn cleave many downstream proteins to kill the cells. They can also be inhibited through various means that include up-regulation of anti-apoptotic and down-regulation of pro-apoptotic factors. The authors here aim to impart a comprehensive understanding of the biochemical characteristics of these pathways that render scientists target these pathways and assess apoptosis restoring abilities of the novel drugs and natural products for cancer treatment.

Lipids, Peptides, and Polymers as Targeted Drug Delivery Vectors in Cancer Therapy

The authors aim to describe valuable information and experimental reviews that may help to develop and design different formulation, which can boost up the overall efficiency of the final product. Further, they explained the overall efficiency, method of preparation, target delivery approaches, drawbacks, and other characteristics in relation to lipids, peptides, polymers, and vaccines. In addition, they also propose to uncover the physico-chemical properties, in-process manufacturing issues, and external factors that influence the fate of a medicine. That major includes the excipients, method of preparation, dose, delivery route, chemical and biological properties, drug-drug interaction, drug-body interaction, patient compliance, modifications in lipid based nano-vectors, polymer-mediated delivery systems, conjugate delivery systems, and others. In conclusion, by the end of this chapter, the authors are able to explain a robust mode of delivering active constituents more safely and economically to the target site by showing maximum bioavailability.