ABSTRACT

The development of structures and devices on a nanometer scale and their application in several fields is referred to as nanotechnology. One of these fields is medicine, better known as nanomedicine. Nanomedicines have many descriptions ranging from, “the use of materials”, of which at least one of their dimensions that affects their function is in the scale range 1-100 nm, for a specific diagnostic or therapeutic purpose (Kostarelos, 2006) through to “the science and technology of diagnosing, treating and preventing disease and traumatic injury, of relieving pain, and of preserving and improving human health, using molecular tools and molecular knowledge of the human body” (Hermerén et al., 2007) as described by the European Science Foundation (ESF).