Petite and Sweet: Glyco-Nanotechnology as a Bridge to New Medicines

Over the past decade, diagnostics and therapeutics research has evolved towards the use of more specific and targeted approaches. A most profound impact has been observed in the nanotechnology sectors, where an explosion in directing molecules to specific biomarkers has illustrated great potential not only in detection but also in targeted therapy. As some of the most common cell-surface ligands, carbohydrates and glyco-conjugates are known to play crucial roles in many medicinally important physiological processes, including inflammatory and immunological responses, tumor metastasis, cell-cell signaling, apoptosis, cell adhesion, bacterial and viral recognition, and anticoagulation. Glyco-nanotechnology, the interfacing of glycoscience and nanotechnology, is an exciting new field to translate basic discoveries into important clinical applications.
This book describes current progress in the glyco-nanotechnology field. It will provide the readers with knowledge of the current status of glyco-nanotechnology research and kindle additional interests in this field. There are tremendous opportunities in biomedical applications of glyconanomaterials and we have just begun to uncover them.