“9.61x6.69” b2815 Tissue Engineering and Nanotheranostics
Magnetic Nanohybrids for Magnetic Resonance Imaging 103
therapeutic drugs simultaneously with same dose for improved treat-
ment. Better molecular understanding is very important to synthesize
novel efficient targeted therapy agents and optimize drug selection.^7
Moreover, theranostics endeavors to observe the treatment response,
to boost drug efficacy with safety, and to remove the redundant treat-
ment of patients. As a result, theranostic proves to be cost effective
for the overall healthcare system. Hence, the promising science of
theranostics appears to present a distinctive opportunity to diagnos-
tics and pharmaceutical companies to fulfill the regulatory and finan-
cial restrictions imposed by the Food and Drug Administrations
(FDA).8,9 Earlier theranostics, imaging contrast agents were simply
mixed to the delivery vehicles loaded with therapy carriers for use in
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography
(PET) and computed tomography (CT). Therefore, the foremost
objective of the theranostic research area is to attain the capability to
monitor the diseased tissue, drug efficiency, imaging, delivery kinet-
ics, and tune the therapy and dose rate in a controlled manner based
on the requirements.^10
The appearance of nanotechnology has provided the opportunity
and made it easier to bring diagnosis and therapy factors closer.
Nanostructured materials are assumed to be the fundamental building
blocks of practical nanotechnology and thus can be manipulated for
Fig. 1. Main interactions between fields of nanotechnology and biology, Redrawn
from Roco (2003), from Ref. 5.^