Figure 6.

Next generation designs in nanomedicine involve particles that respond to physiological cues from the tumor microenvironment. Two such designs are small particles that assemble into larger structures at tumors (small‐to‐large assembly), the other is larger particles that disassemble in to smaller particles at tumors (large‐to‐small disassembly). The small‐to‐large disassembly process forms large particles at the tumor that are too large to diffuse out and therefore are retained, whereas the particles not localized to the tumor are quickly cleared from the body. The large‐to‐small disassembly process has large structures that have long circulation times that once at the tumor site, disassembles into small particles that have greater perfusion throughout the tumor tissue