Novel Therapeutic Interventions for Neurodegenerative Disorders May 25, 2022 The most common neurodegenerative disorders (NDDs) in developed countries are Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Parkinson’s disease (PD), though over 50 different NDDs are known to affect the general population. Dementia and PD are among the top 15 conditions with the highest increase in disease burden in recent years, and an estimated 45–50 million people currently suffer from dementia with predicted increases to 75 million by 2030 and 145 million by 2050 based on the diagnosis of 7.7 million new cases/year. The prevalence of PD ranges from 35.8 per 100,000 to 12,500 per 100,000, with an annual incidence ranging from 1.5 per 100,000 to 346 per 100,000 in different countries. PD has been found to coexist with dementia and depression in over 25% of cases. In addition to different forms of dementia and Parkinson-like disorders, other NNDs of clinical relevance include demyelinating disorders and motor-neuron disease.

Natural active ingredient–based nanodrug delivery system for cancer treatment April 11, 2022 Natural products (NPs) have present abundant scaffold diversity and structural complexity, and have contributed greatly in drug discovery efforts especially for anticancer drugs. As an example, Professor Youyou Tu was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize for discovering artemisinin from Artemisia annua. While natural active ingredients are important sources of novel anticancer drugs, NPs often exhibit unfavorable physicochemical and pharmacokinetics properties, such as low solubility, poor bioavailability, and systemic toxicity, which limit their potential for clinical application. Thus, nanodrug delivery systems, such as liposomes, polymer colloids, carbon nanomaterials, metal-organic framework, and magnetic nanocarriers, have been developed to overcome the unsuitable properties of NPs and improve their therapeutic efficacy for cancer.