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Pancreatic cancer has been classified as a cancer of unmet need. After diagnosis the patient prognosis is dismal with few surviving over 5 years. Treatment regimes are highly patient variable and often the patients are too sick to undergo surgical resection or chemotherapy. These chemotherapies are not effective often because patients are diagnosed at late stages and tumour metastasis has occurred. Nanotechnology can be used in order to formulate potent anticancer agents to improve their physicochemical properties such as poor aqueous solubility or prolong circulation times after administration resulting in improved efficacy. Studies have reported the use of nanotechnologies to improve the efficacy of gemcitabine (the current first line treatment) as well as investigating the potential of using other drug molecules which have previously shown promise but were unable to be utilised due to the inability to administer through appropriate routes--often related to solubility. Of the nanotechnologies reported, many can offer site specific targeting to the site of action as well as a plethora of other multifunctional properties such as image guidance and controlled release. This review focuses on the use of the major nanotechnologies both under pre-clinical development and those which have recently been approved for use in pancreatic cancer therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hybrid iron oxide-gold nanoparticles are of increasing interest for applications in nanomedicine, photonics, energy storage, etc. However, they are often difficult to synthesise without experience or 'know-how'. Additionally, standard protocols do not allow for scale up, and this is significantly hindering their future potential. In this study, we seek to determine whether microfluidics could be used as a new manufacturing process to reliably produce hybrid nanoparticles with the line of sight to their continuous manufacture and scaleup. Using a Precision Nano NanoAssemblr Benchtop® system, we were able to perform the intermediate coating steps required in order to construct hybrid nanoparticles around 60 nm in size with similar chemical and physical properties to those synthesised in the laboratory using standard processes, with Fe/Au ratios of 1:0.6 (standard) and 1:0.7 (microfluidics), indicating that the process was suitable for their manufacture with optimisation required in order to configure a continuous manufacturing plant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]