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conferenceseries.com
October 20-22, 2016 Rome, Italy
11th International Conference and Expo on
Nanoscience and Molecular Nanotechnology
Volume 7, Issue 5 (Suppl) J Nanomed Nanotechnol 2016
ISSN: 2157-7439 JNMNT an open access journal NanoScience 2016
October 20-22, 2016
Natural products loaded in nanocarriers: An opportunity to increase stability, oral bioavailability and
bioefficacy
Anna Rita Bilia
University of Florence, Italy
Natural products represent a main source of drugs due to their enormous structural and chemical diversity. They may have
additive/synergistic or antagonistic effects, or possess unique mechanisms of action (i.e. taxol activity on tubulin polymerization),
others can modulate multiple targets or activating multiple pathwaysdriving fundamental biological processes. A paradigmatic
example is curcumin, it is a highly pleiotropic molecule with anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, chemopreventive, chemosensitization,
and radiosensitization activities. In spite of these advantages, several questions concerning the role of natural compounds in the
treatment of some diseases remain unanswered, principally due to the transferability of in vitro to in vivo and ultimately to human
studies: mostly of promising molecules in cell-based assays fail in phase II and phase III. This passage from impressive in vitro
activity to less or no significant in vivo efficacy is generally due to their poor water solubility, high lipophilicity resulting in poor
absorption and hence poor systemic bioavailability, resulting in less or no therapeutic effects. Another problem is their instability
in biological milieu, premature drug loss through rapid clearance and biotransformation. Over the last ten years, our laboratory has
formulated biocompatible and biodegradablenanocarriers encapsulating various imperative natural products including artemisinin
and derivatives, curcumin, andrographolide, salvianolic acid, verbascoside, flavonoids. The developed new dosage forms, namely
micelles, vesicles, nanoparticles, microemulsions, solid lipid nanoparticles and structured lipid capsules performed several sound
characteristics and functions, which are currently unavailable in conventional formulations of natural drugs, such as enhanced
solubility and stability, effect of targeting and increasing bioavailability.
Acknowledgments: this work was supported by Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze.
Biography
Anna Rita Bilia is Associate Professor at the Department of Chemistry of the University of Florence, and Director of the Post-graduate School of Hospital Pharmacy.
She is President of the International Society for Medicinal Plant and Natural Product Research and President of the Italian Society of Phytochemistry. She is Italian
delegate at the European Scientific Cooperative for Phytotherapy and Expert of the European Pharmacopoeia. She published more than 180 scientific papers,
several books chapters and invited reviews in reputed journals. She is Editor and Editorial Board Member of several international scientific journals.
Anna Rita Bilia, J Nanomed Nanotechnol 2016, 7:5 (Suppl)