The Umeå Centre for Global Health Research (UCGHR) is a Centre of Excellence within Umeå University in Northern Sweden. The Centre operates within the university’s Division of Epidemiology and Public Health Sciences, and is led by a steering group chaired by a principal investigator.CGH seeks to engage with a global agenda on health research and practice, addressing critical issues in global health and facilitating collaboration between and within the North and South. The Centre’s long-term research programme has been developed against a background of international epidemiological research, as well as public health work within Sweden.It publishes the open-access academic journal Global Health Action..
Cancer continues to pose a global health challenge, with conventional therapies often limited by non-specific toxicity, drug resistance, and an inadequate therapeutic index. Nanotechnology offers transformative opportunities by enabling targeted drug delivery, improved pharmacokinetics, and integrated diagnostic-therapeutic platforms (termed nanotheranostics). This review highlights key nanocarrier systems including liposomes, polymeric nanoparticles, dendrimers, inorganic nanostructures, carbon-based materials, extracellular vesicles, and hybrid platforms with a focus on human studies and clinical translation. Design strategies (such as passive and active tumor targeting, biomimicry, and stimuli-responsive release mechanisms) are discussed in the context of improving tumor selectivity and minimizing systemic toxicity. Recent innovations, including AI-supported nanomedicine design, smart nanorobots, and cell-mediated delivery systems, are also examined. Although multiple nano-formulations such as Doxil®, Abraxane®, and Vyxeos® have reached clinical use, challenges remain including large-scale manufacturing, regulatory pathways, long-term safety evaluation, and cost-effective global accessibility. This review provides a critical appraisal of current evidence, translational bottlenecks, and emerging opportunities to guide future nanomedicine development. Nanotechnology is poised to become a cornerstone of precision oncology, enabling personalized, safe, and effective cancer treatment paradigms.
The integration of machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) into drug discovery and target identification has catalyzed a paradigm shift in pharmaceutical research, enhancing efficiency and translational potential for nano-enabled therapeutics. ML models have demonstrated up to 85% accuracy in predicting drug-target interactions, whereas DL frameworks, such as convolutional neural networks (CNNs), graph neural networks (GNNs), and transformer architectures, can improve molecular property predictions by 40%. AI-driven drug discovery workflows have curtailed drug candidate attrition rates by up to 30% and accelerated discovery timelines by 20%-40%, accentuating their rising industrial and clinical impact. This critical review evaluates the transformative roles of ML and DL in the drug discovery pipeline, emphasizing their capacity to accelerate development timelines and advance precision nano medicine. We analyzed predictive modelling techniques, including quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) and absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (ADME) predictions, which streamline the identification of viable drug candidates, including nanocarrier-enabled drug systems. Virtual screening and bioactivity prediction further refine candidate prioritization, whereas target identification and validation leverage protein-ligand interaction modelling and biological pathway analysis to ensure therapeutic specificity. Additionally, we discuss the profound impact of DL on medical image analysis, genomic data interpretation, and protein structure prediction (PSP), which collectively advance structural bioinformatics and enable optimized targeted nano medicine. By synergizing ML and DL, multi-modal data fusion, explainable artificial intelligence (XAI), and nanotechnology-driven datasets, the drug discovery process is evolving into a more efficient, predictive, and patient-centric endeavor, paving the way for ground-breaking therapies and improved clinical outcomes.
This chapter discusses how virtual exchange (VE) projects can support female students on English language teacher education programmes, whose first language is not English, with reflecting on their beliefs, approaching their professional development in a critical way and feeling included and valued. Focusing in particular on the autoethnographical reflections of female participants who took part in VE projects that aimed at decolonising the English Language Teaching (ELT) curriculum, the chapter illustrates how VE can provide a powerful knowledge-sharing third space that enables female students to co-construct otherwise and pluralised ways of learning while also developing useful transversal competences.
This chapter discusses how the Covid 19 pandemic has normalized online and remote learning, and opened dynamic and interactive ways to integrate telecollaboration in English Language Teaching (ELT) curricula and practice in Higher Education. It proposes that the integration of telecollaboration in ELT is also giving the opportunity to explore how to decolonise this field. The positive impact of telecollaboration for pre-service and in-service language teacher education has already been documented, this chapter aims to provide case studies involving Global South and Global North contexts. It illustrates different models of integration of telecollaboration in the ELT curricula at both undergraduate and postgraduate level in Türkiye, Brazil, and the UK. The analysis addresses modes of integration, tasks and technologies, challenges and solutions, the effect of contextual factors, the pedagogical mentoring issues encountered, educators’ motivation and the varying levels of institutional support. The chapter concludes by reporting on the lessons learnt.
Abstract LNPs are the basis of mRNA and nucleic acid-based therapeutics. However, their remarkable clinical potential is limited by a persistent challenge, i.e., nonspecific accumulation in the liver and associated hepatotoxicity. Traditional strategies, such as PEGylation and lipid ionization modification, have reached a point of low therapeutic value-add to control biodistribution. Recently published studies present an innovative concept: LNPs that recruit albumin, exploiting interactions with endogenous albumin to avoid liver accumulation and simultaneously improve delivery through the lymphatic system for immune-modulation. This review provides a concise incursion into such strategies that redefine stealth nanomedicine, not as chemical camouflage but as a biological alliance with plasma transport proteins, paving the way for a new paradigm of self-protecting nanocarriers for safer and more precise mRNA therapeutics.
