Abstract
Nanoparticles, as the name suggest, are the particles in a size ranging between 1 and 1000 nm. The utilization of nanoparticles, especially in the eld of medicine and pharmaceutical sciences, provides the exibility to alter fundamental physical properties of compounds such as solubility, diffusivity, half-life of drug in blood circulation, drug release characteristics, and immunogenicity. A drug can be dissolved, entrapped, encapsulated, or attached to a nanoparticle matrix [1-3]. Over the years, a number of nanoparticulate systems have been developed for the treatment and diagnosis of cancer, diabetes, pain, asthma, allergy, and infections among many other diseases and conditions [4,5]. Further, the discovery of new chemical entities for better treatment and control of a wide spectrum of diseases has necessitated the use of these carrier systems for faster and more efcient delivery. In the case of diagnostic applications, nanoparticles allow detection on the molecular level; they help recognize abnormalities such as fragments of viruses, precancerous cells, and disease markers that cannot be detected by conventional methods. Nanoparticulate imaging contrast agents have also been shown to improve the sensitivity and specicity of magnetic resonance imaging [6]. Overall, nanoparticles offers numerous advantages such as better solubility and drug dissolution rate, improvement in the absorption prole and bioavailability of drug, allowing site-specic targeting of drugs, allowing controlled drug release, providing effective and/or easier routes of administration, reducing therapeutic toxicity, prolonging the effect of drug in target tissue, improving the stability of the drugs against chemical and enzymatic degradation, and subsequently lowering healthcare costs.