As an emerging discipline emerging in the late 20th century, "nanotechnology" has received high attention in china.In the National Medium- and Long-Term Program for Science and Technology Development (2006-2020), nanoscience and technology was identified as "one of the fields where China is expected to achieve leapfrog development." Nanjing Innovation Investment Group has invited Researcher Li Zhiyang from the Clinical Laboratory of Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital to interpret the emerging "golden track" of nanomedicine based on his long-term professional experience and expert perspective.
Li Zhiyang is the Head of the Research Group at the Clinical Laboratory of Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, holding a PhD and postdoctoral degree in Biomedical Engineering from Southeast University. He is also a doctoral supervisor, a Key Medical Talent under Jiangsu Province’s "13th Five-Year Plan for Strengthening Health through Science and Education," and a recipient of the Jiangsu Province "333 Talent Program" recognition.
He has been dedicated to scientific research in laboratory medicine for over 20 years, focusing on the development of new precision medicine diagnosis and treatment methodologies based on nanomaterials and related testing instruments. His current research focuses on the development of high-sensitivity, high-specificity, and automated new liquid biopsy technologies featuring nanotechnology. These technologies are expected to provide new, comprehensive solutions for the diagnosis and treatment of pathogenic microorganisms and disease markers, which are superior to existing methods.
Nanjing Innovation Investment Group
Nanomedicine has become an important development direction in modern healthcare, offering entirely new approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of many diseases. Compared with traditional diagnostic and therapeutic methods, what are the advantages of nano-based diagnosis and treatment technologies?
Li Zhiyang
A "nanometer" is a unit of length, denoted by the symbol "nm." 1 nanometer equals 1 millimicron, or one billionth of a meter—roughly the length of 10 atoms. To put it in perspective: if the diameter of a human hair is 0.05 millimeters, splitting it radially into 50,000 equal parts would result in each part having a diameter of approximately 1 nanometer.
Nanomaterials, which refer to materials at the nanoscale, are representative of nanotechnology and have been widely used in modern healthcare—for instance, as carriers for diagnostic reagents, imaging contrast agents, and targeted drug delivery systems. Scientists have leveraged these nanomaterials to shift traditional diagnostic and therapeutic technologies from the micrometer scale to the nanoscale, significantly improving the quality, quantity, and density of information we can obtain.
In the development of in vitro diagnostic reagents, nanomaterials can load more biological reagents such as antibodies and probes, greatly enhancing the sensitivity of detection. In in vivo applications, the nanoscale advantage enables them to act as targeted, sustained-release, and controllable drug carriers, achieving precise and efficient disease treatment.
Nanjing Innovation Investment Group
Currently, in which disease diagnosis and treatment scenarios has nanotechnology been applied?
Li Zhiyang
Nanotechnology has a wide range of uses in the healthcare industry. Let me give a few common examples:
The red strips on pregnancy test kits are made of countless gold (Au) nanoparticles ranging from 5 to 50 nm in size. These nanoparticles are modified with antibodies, which can separate and detect human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) in urine.
Nanotechnology has also been highly effective in COVID-19 nucleic acid testing. For virus detection, the viral genetic material must first be isolated from the sample—a step that traditionally requires centrifuges, which are slow, yield low results, hard to automate, and unable to handle high throughput. Our team has developed a core material of monodisperse magnetic nanoparticles, along with supporting nucleic acid extraction reagents and equipment. This has reduced the nucleic acid extraction process (which previously took 100 minutes) to less than 10 minutes, while enabling the extraction of 96 samples at once—greatly reducing the workload of laboratory staff.
Another example is magnetic resonance imaging (MRI): before a scan, patients are injected with a contrast agent whose main component is magnetic nanoparticles. This agent enhances the scan, making the examined area clearer.
The applications of nanomedicine are extremely broad—even traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is connected to it. For instance, deer antler can grow up to 3 centimeters a day. A domestic research team has extracted small vesicles (around 100 nm in diameter) from deer antler; these natural nanomaterials can more effectively stimulate cartilage growth, making them suitable for joint repair.
All these examples involve nanotechnology, which is driving the development of medical technology. With the support of nanotechnology, detection sensitivity can be increased by 100 times or even 1,000 times, while therapeutic effects can be improved by more than 10 times.
Additionally, the human body secretes nanoscale vesicles into the bloodstream, which can be used to diagnose genetic defects in fetuses. For example, in the early stages of cancer—when tumor cells are still surrounded by normal tissue and cannot yet be detected in the blood—the nanoscale vesicles (exosomes) they secrete can already reach the bloodstream through tissue gaps. By using nanotechnology to enrich and detect these exosomes, we can enable early cancer screening while avoiding the pain caused by traditional tissue biopsies.
Nanjing Innovation Investment Group
Could you introduce your latest medical research achievements in nanotechnology? For example, what are the application scenarios of nano-based liquid biopsy technology, and has it been industrialized?
Li Zhiyang
In the short term, our research focus is on the early auxiliary diagnosis and companion diagnosis of diseases targeting exosomes. We aim to develop highly reproducible, precise detection technologies capable of identifying single exosomes. This will enable accurate early disease diagnosis using blood samples—or even non-invasive samples like urine, without the need for blood draws.
We hope that in the future, nano-based liquid biopsy technology will become part of annual routine physical examinations. Using just 1 milliliter of blood or directly using urine, it will enable non-invasive, sensitive screening for major diseases such as cancer—similar to how we test blood glucose or pregnancy today. This will provide more timely and targeted diagnosis and treatment plans for patients in China and around the world.
Nanjing Innovation Investment Group
Currently, nanomedicine technology research is in a "golden age." What suggestions do you have for the future development of the medical nanotechnology industry?
Li Zhiyang
From the perspective of nanomaterial industrialization, many issues remain unresolved. For example, over 90% of polystyrene microspheres used in clinical immunoturbidimetry still rely on imports. Although some domestic companies can produce them and meet basic indicators, they struggle to control the "batch-to-batch variation."
What is "batch-to-batch variation"? It refers to deviations in the standard values of reagents. Test reports require precision—large deviations between batches are unacceptable, as they would lead to significant errors in test results and prevent accurate judgment of disease progression. Foreign products can control batch-to-batch variation within 3%, but domestic products still have a large gap to close.
While we are catching up, gaps persist in certain areas. China has ranked first globally in the number of nanotechnology-related papers in the past three years, but in reality, we are still in a "catching-up" phase compared to developed countries—especially in higher-level technologies. How to translate "paper achievements" into industrial products will likely be a task we need to focus on for the next 20 to 30 years.
Nanjing Innovation Investment Group
"New Medicine and Life Health" is one of Nanjing’s eight key industrial chains. The Group currently focuses on supporting technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in this field with forward-looking vision and breakthrough technological innovations, and promotes their success in clinical trials and commercialization. What is your view on these initiatives, and what are your expectations for the future?
Li Zhiyang
In the process of converting medical research achievements into commercial products, there are significant uncertainties—such as whether the product can be mass-produced and its effectiveness. Additionally, concerns about future market expectations and return on investment often prevent many promising projects from obtaining industrialization fund support, seriously hindering the industrialization of medical technology achievements.
The supportive policies of Nanjing Innovation Investment Group have largely supported or even resolved these issues. The Group demonstrates strong foresight in evaluating medical innovation projects of technology-based SMEs, and has accelerated the translation of scientific research achievements into practical clinical applications. Although the risks may be relatively high, these efforts have encouraged and supported the development of many excellent outcomes, further stimulating industrial innovation.
In the future, Nanjing Innovation Investment Group could create more support channels for biomedical research institutions and SMEs—for example, organizing more roadshows for them, increasing support for technology-based pharmaceutical companies that are about to be established, and promoting their commercial success.
Source: Li Zhiyang, Administrative Management Department
Reviewer: Xue Yao
Publisher: You Yi
