Autophagy: Cancer, Other Pathologies, Inflammation, Immunity, Infection, and Aging is an eleven volume series that discusses in detail all aspects of autophagy machinery in the context of health, cancer, and other pathologies. Autophagy maintains homeostasis during starvation or stress conditions by balancing the synthesis of cellular components and their deregulation by autophagy. This series discusses the characterization of autophagosome-enriched vaccines and its efficacy in cancer immunotherapy. Autophagy serves to maintain healthy cells, tissues, and organs, but also promotes cancer survival and growth of established tumors. Impaired or deregulated autophagy can also contribute to disease pathogenesis. Understanding the importance and necessity of the role of autophagy in health and disease is vital for the studies of cancer, aging, neurodegeneration, immunology, and infectious diseases. Comprehensive and forward-thinking, these books offer a valuable guide to cellular processes while also inciting researchers to explore their potentially important connections. - Presents the most advanced information regarding the role of the autophagic system in life and death - Examines whether autophagy acts fundamentally as a cell survivor or cell death pathway or both - Introduces new, more effective therapeutic strategies in the development of targeted drugs and programmed cell death, providing information that will aid in preventing detrimental inflammation - Features recent advancements in the molecular mechanisms underlying a large number of genetic and epigenetic diseases and abnormalities, including atherosclerosis and CNS tumors, and their development and treatment - Includes chapters authored by leaders in the field around the globe—the broadest, most expert coverage available

This book features a special subsection of Nanomedicine, an application of nanotechnology to achieve breakthroughs in healthcare. It exploits the improved and often novel physical, chemical and biological properties of materials only existent at the nanometer scale. As a consequence of small scale, nanosystems in most cases are efficiently uptaken by cells and appear to act at the intracellular level. Nanotechnology has the potential to improve diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of diseases, and includes targeted drug delivery and regenerative medicine; it creates new tools and methods that impact significantly upon existing conservative practices. This volume is a collection of authoritative reviews. In the introductory section we define the field (intracellular delivery). Then, the fundamental routes of nanodelivery devices, cellular uptake, types of delivery devices, particularly in terms of localized cellular delivery, both for small drug molecules, macromolecular drugs and genes; at the academic and applied levels, are covered. The following section is dedicated to enhancing delivery via special targeting motifs followed by the introduction of different types of intracellular nanodelivery devices (e.g. a brief description of their chemistry) and ways of producing these different devices. Finally, we put special emphasis on particular disease states and on other biomedical applications, whilst diagnostic and sensing issues are also included. Intracellular delivery / therapy is a highly topical which will stir great interest. Intracellular delivery enables much more efficient drug delivery since the impact (on different organelles and sites) is intracellular as the drug is not supplied externally within the blood stream. There is great potential for targeted delivery with improved localized delivery and efficacy.

The development of liposomes as a drug delivery system has fluctuated since its introduction in the late 1960's by A.D. Bangham. While academic research of liposomes as a model membrane system has always flourished, as the exponential growth of papers can testify, the application of these findings to medically useful products has gone through several crises. Following the original optimism in the 70's and early 80's, a period of severe skepticism ensued at the end of the 80's and beginning of the 90's, culminating in a moderate but real optimism in the mid 90's, as a result of a successful launch of the first products in the US and Europe.In this collection of papers, the editors have gathered the most promising ideas, approaches, applications and commercial developments, thereby presenting an up-to-date compilation of the present status of the field. This includes such broad areas as anti-cancer chemotherapy immune stimulation and infectious diseases. Currently, the major areas of progress are in delivery of anti-fungal agents by conventional liposomes or lipid-based carriers and systemic anticancer therapy using long-circulating liposomes. The future applications as characterized by the direction of present day research is in specific targeting and delivery of informational molecules such as DNA plasmids (genes), antisense oligonucleotides or ribozymes. Other future developments may be in topical delivery, vaccination and in diagnostics.Features of this book:• Contributions from almost all the leading labs in the field• Up-to-date, critical reviews bridged by editors' introductions• Organized into a logical framework.

Solid-binding peptides have been used increasingly as molecular building blocks in nanobiotechnology as they can direct the assembly and functionalisation of a diverse range of materials and have the ability to regulate the synthesis of nanoparticles and complex nanostructures. Nanostructured materials such as β-sheet fibril-forming peptides and α-helical coiled coil systems have displayed many useful properties including stimulus-responsiveness, modularity and multi-functionality, providing potential technological applications in tissue engineering, antimicrobials, drug delivery and nanoscale electronics. The current situation with respect to self-assembling peptides and bioactive matrices for regenerative medicine are reviewed, as well as peptide-target modeling and an examination of future prospects for peptides in these areas.

This edited book highlights the central players in the Bionanotechnology field - which are the nanostructures and biomolecules. It provides broad examples of current developments in Bionanotechnology research and is an excellent introduction to the field. The book describes how nanostructures are synthesized and details the wide variety of nanostructures available for biological research and applications. Examples of the unique properties of nanostructures are provided along with the current applications of these nanostructures in biology and medicine. The final chapters of the book describe the toxicity of nanostructures.

The International Symposia on Plant Lipids, the 15th of which was held in Okazaki, Japan, in May 12-17, 2002, is held every two years and is the only international meeting in this field. The contributions from the symposium collected in this book represent the most up-to-date research results on plant lipids, including their structure, analysis, biosynthesis, regulation, physiological function, environmental aspects, and biotechnology, obtained world-wide during 2000-2002

A comprehensive discussion of various types of nanoengineered biomaterials and their applications In Nanoengineering of Biomaterials: Drug Delivery & Biomedical Applications, an expert team of chemists delivers a succinct exploration of the synthesis, characterization, in-vitro and in-vivo drug molecule release, pharmacokinetic activity, pharmacodynamic activity, and the biomedical applications of several types of nanoengineered biomaterials. The editors have also included resources to highlight the most current developments in the field. The book is a collection of valuable and accessible reference sources for researchers in materials chemistry and related disciplines. It uses a functions-directed approach to using organic and inorganic source compounds that translate into biological systems as scaffolds, micelles, dendrimers, and other delivery systems. Nanoengineering of Biomaterials offers readers up-to-date chemistry and material science insights that are readily transferrable to biomedical systems. The book also includes: Thorough introductions to alginate nanoparticle delivery of therapeutics and chitosan-based nanomaterials in biological applications Comprehensive explorations of nanostructured carrageenan as a drug carrier, gellan gum nanoparticles in drug delivery, and guar-gum nanoparticles in the delivery of bioactive molecules Practical discussions of protein-based nanoparticles for drug delivery, solid lipid nanoparticles as drug carriers, and pH-responsive nanoparticles in therapy In-depth examinations of stimuli-responsive nano carriers in drug targeting Perfect for pharmaceutical chemists, materials scientists, polymer chemists, life scientists, and medicinal chemists, Nanoengineering of Biomaterials: Drug Delivery and Biomedical Applications is also an indispensable resource for biologists and bioengineers seeking a one-stop reference on the transferability of materials chemistry and nanotechnology to biomedicine.