Today, the development of science and technology has made great
strides in biomedical science but human beings are still facing many
diseases, most notably cancer. There are many cancer drugs available on the
market. However, the biggest disadvantage of many cancer drugs is that they
are less soluble in water or more readily excreted. Besides, the selectivity of
these drugs is not high, and more or less affects healthy tissues and results in
side effects including nausea, diarrhea, anemia or reduced immunity of the
body. This is due to most treatments not only affect the tumor locally, but
also affect a large part of the body's normal tissues and organs. To overcome
the shortcomings of the method above, researchers have applied
nanotechnology, using nanometer-sized materials as a vehicle to deliver
cancer-specific drugs such as Curcumin, Paclitaxel, Doxorubicin. to the
tumor safely. In addition, magnetic nanomaterials have been studied
extensively for cancer screening, cancer diagnosis by magnetic resonance
imaging (MRI), thermotherapy by increasing tumor temperature under
magnetic field, and especially tumor targeting by magnets. Magnetic
nanoparticles and anti-cancer drugs could be encapsulated in the shells of
natural or synthetic polymers such as dextran, modified dextran, chitosan,
modified chitosan, alginate, PLA-TPGS, PLA-PEG . to become nano stable
systems. The surface of these system can be added a number of target factors
such as folate, aptamer, tranferin, lectin and antibody. Such a multifunctional
nanosystem will increase the effect on certain cancer cells, partly addressing
the need for chemotherapy to be highly selective for cancer cells. The
benefits of the material utility are: reducing the dose of the drug, focusing on
the tumor position, avoiding to affect the healthy cells and therefore
minimizing adverse side effects on patients. From the above mentioned
issues, it is possible to use a multifunctinal nanosystem consisting of Fe3O4
nanoparticles coated with modified chitosan, modified dextran, alginate or
copolymers and attached folate as a vehicle for Curcumin (Cur) or
Doxorubicin (Dox) to safely target the cancerous tumor. Based on that fact,
the thesis "Research and make the effect of polyunsaturated (polymer-drugFe3O4-folate) on cancer cells" was done.
