(632c) One-Component Nanomedicine

A growing trend within nanomedicine over the past five years has been the use of drug molecules to create well-defined nanostructures. These drug-made nanostructures are essentially one-component nanomedicine since they could have the capacity to reach their targeted sites without using any additional carriers. Here I will detail our recent effort in rational design of monodisperse, amphiphilic anticancer drugs—which we term drug amphiphiles (DAs)—that can spontaneously associate into discrete, stable supramolecular nanostructures with a high and fixed drug loading. Depending on the number and type of the drug in the molecular design, the resulting nanostructures could assume various morphologies, such as nanofibers, nanotubes or toroids. Our results suggest that formation of nanostructures provides protection for both the drug and the biodegradable linker from the external environment and thus offers a mechanism for controlled release.