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Strategies for advancing cancer nanomedicine

Cancer nanomedicines approved so far minimize toxicity, but their efficacy is often limited by physiological barriers posed by the tumour microenvironment. Here, we discuss how these barriers can be overcome through innovative nanomedicine design and through creative manipulation of the tumour microenvironment.

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Figure 1: The transport barriers to drug delivery in tumours.
Figure 2: The complex structure of the tumour microenvironment.
Figure 3: Normalizing the tumour microenvironment to improve drug delivery and efficacy.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank James W. Baish, Moungi G. Bawendi, Yves Boucher, Dai Fukumura, Robert S. Langer, Lance L. Munn, Paolo Netti, Triantafyllos Stylianopoulos, Fan Yuan, and many former graduate students and postdoctoral fellows for their collaboration and insightful discussions. R.K.J. would also like to thank the National Cancer Institute for continuous support of his research and for current grants from NCI (P01-CA080124, R01-CA126642, R01-CA163815, and Federal Share Income Grant), and a DoD Breast Cancer Research Innovator award (W81XWH-10-1-0016). V.P.C. would like to thank the National Cancer Institute for a Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Post-doctoral Fellowship (T32-CA073479).

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Correspondence to Rakesh K. Jain.

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R.K.J. received consultant fees from Enlight, Noxxon, WebMD, XTuit and Zyngenia; owns equity in Enlight, SynDevRx, and XTuit; and serves on the Board of Directors of XTuit, and Boards of Trustees of H&Q Healthcare Investors and H&Q Life Sciences Investors. V.P.C. received consultant fees and owns equity in XTuit.

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Chauhan, V., Jain, R. Strategies for advancing cancer nanomedicine. Nature Mater 12, 958–962 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3792

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