TEHRAN - Nanotechnology is opening new avenues for breast cancer treatment by improving drug delivery, overcoming resistance to chemotherapy, and reducing damage to healthy cells. Pakistani medicinal chemist Muhammad Iqbal Choudhary, a 2021 Mustafa Prize laureate, is among the researchers exploring how advanced drug-delivery systems can make cancer therapies more precise and effective.

Breast cancer remains a major global health challenge, with patients often facing recurrence, drug resistance, and severe treatment-related side effects. Conventional chemotherapy targets rapidly dividing cells but can also damage healthy tissues, including hair follicles, the gastrointestinal lining, and bone marrow. Meanwhile, cancer cells can develop multidrug resistance (MDR) by activating molecular pumps that expel drugs before they can take effect.

“Cancers are very difficult, complex, and diverse diseases,” Choudhary said. He explained that chemotherapy drugs often affect both cancerous and healthy cells, making it challenging to target tumors without causing significant side effects.

Choudhary, who heads the International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS) at the University of Karachi, serves as vice president of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) and coordinates the Standing Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (COMSTECH).

Receiving the Mustafa Prize marked a turning point in his scientific career, providing renewed motivation and focus. Since then, his research group has increasingly concentrated on innovative breast cancer treatments and smarter drug-delivery technologies.

Nanocarriers offer one promising approach by encapsulating therapeutic compounds in microscopic particles that protect drugs from premature degradation and release them more effectively at tumor sites. These systems can use passive targeting, which exploits the increased permeability of tumor blood vessels, or active targeting, in which antibodies, peptides, or other molecules help nanoparticles bind to cancer-cell receptors.

According to Choudhary, nanoparticles can contribute both to drug discovery and to delivering existing medicines more precisely, potentially improving their effectiveness while limiting harmful side effects.

One promising strategy involves poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA), a biodegradable and biocompatible polymer widely investigated for controlled drug delivery. Adding vitamin E-derived TPGS may further help counter drug resistance by interfering with the energy-dependent mechanisms that cancer cells use to expel chemotherapy drugs.

Researchers are also investigating nanoparticles coated with natural cell membranes to help them evade immune clearance and accumulate more effectively in tumors. Platelet membranes are particularly promising because their surface proteins may support tumor targeting. A 2025 preclinical study reported greater uptake of platelet-membrane-coated, bufalin-loaded PLGA nanoparticles by tumor cells than that of uncoated particles.

These advances could be particularly valuable against triple-negative breast cancer, an aggressive subtype lacking estrogen, progesterone, and HER2 receptors, which limits conventional targeted treatment options. Nanoparticle-based systems that respond to local tumor conditions may offer alternative ways to deliver drugs without relying on these receptors.

Despite the promise, significant challenges remain. Producing platelet-membrane-coated nanoparticles consistently at clinical scale is difficult, and incomplete membrane coverage remains a concern. Such technologies must overcome manufacturing and regulatory hurdles before routine clinical use becomes possible.

Choudhary emphasizes that, although increasingly selective therapies are available, no drug can yet deliver absolute disease-specific precision. Integrating molecular biology, nanotechnology, and medicinal chemistry could nevertheless bring researchers closer to safer, more effective treatments for cancers that have long resisted conventional therapies.