Nanomedicine to leapfrog new medical solutions

Nanomedicine employs nanotechnology—use of nanobes (particles much smaller than microbes that can be manipulated as molecules)—to develop medical solutions.“We think nanomedicine offers opportunity for us to leapfrog in development of the next generation of medical solutions for treating different diseases,” said Prof Winston Soboyejo, President of African University of Science and Technology, which hosted Nigeria’s […]

Nanomedicine employs nanotechnology—use of nanobes (particles much smaller than microbes that can be manipulated as molecules)—to develop medical solutions.
“We think nanomedicine offers opportunity for us to leapfrog in development of the next generation of medical solutions for treating different diseases,” said Prof Winston Soboyejo, President of African University of Science and Technology, which hosted Nigeria’s first-ever conference on nanomedicine in Abuja.
The conference by the Nanomedicine Society of Nigeria featured at least 34 latest research abstracts by mostly Nigerian nanomedicine experts attempting to develop better delivery methods for drugs that target specific conditions as TB, HIV and malaria.
Medicines normally are absorbed body-wide, but nanomedicine can target specific diseased cells, and also helps in prevention, treatment and imaging diseases, said Soboyejo.
“It represents the new frontier in medicine that we as Africans can connect to address our medical challenges. The idea is to train the next generation of people informed by global best practice but inspired by our own local problems,” he added.
“The entire world is growing rapidly in [knowledge] and there are areas we are being left behind,” said Prof Michael Adikwu, who chairs the board of directors of Nanomedicine Society of Nigeria.