Functionalized Nanomaterials and Structures for Biomedical Applications (2nd Edition)

Dear Colleagues,

Nanomedicine, which encompasses the use of nanotechnology for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of diseases, is one of the most exciting and fastest-growing fields in modern healthcare. The systemic administration of bulk drugs suffers from a series of major drawbacks, such as poor bioavailability, rapid degradation within the body, improper biodistribution, and the lack of targeted delivery to injured tissues, resulting in important side effects, the development of multidrug resistance, and low therapeutic efficacy.

Nanoscale formulations of drugs can circumvent the above disadvantages due to the series of unique features derived from their small dimensions, which are strongly correlated with the biological systems on which they act. The smart engineering of nano drug delivery systems (NDDS) endows them with multifunctional capabilities such as stealth properties that enable the evasion of the patient immune system and prolonging of circulation time, specific ligand-guided drug delivery to targeted diseased areas without damaging healthy tissues, stimuli-responsive drug release (allowing for specific spatiotemporal controlled release), the ability to penetrate cells, the ability to improve drug solubilization in biological fluids (improving bioavailability), and the ability to modulate drug pharmacokinetics.

Nanotechnology also helps with imagistic diagnosis and clinical analyses. Theranostic nanomedicine uses nano formulations that integrate both drugs and imaging agents into a single platform. Such nano formulations are used for monitoring drug accumulation at the targeted site versus off-target localization (non-invasive monitoring of drug biodistribution, which strongly correlates with the magnitude of the harmful side effects), for monitoring drug release after the intracellular uptake of the nanocarrier, and for assessing therapeutic outcomes (for instance, malign tumor regression in cancer disease). Therefore, theranostic nano formulations have great potential to predict which individual patients have the best chance to respond appropriately to a particular nanomedicine treatment, especially in the case of heterogenous diseases such as cancer. Thus, theranostic nanomedicine broadly paves the way for personalized medicine, shifting the therapeutic paradigm towards a more holistic approach of “treating the patient, not just the disease”.

Through appropriate surface or bulk functionalization, the physicochemical and pharmacological features of nanocarriers used for drug delivery and theranostic purposes can be finely tuned, given the large diversity of molecular and supramolecular structures of such nanovehicles. Lipid-based nanocarriers, such as solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs), lipid-nanostructured carriers (LNCs), liposomes, and micelles, polymer-based nanocarriers, such as self-assembled amphipathic block copolymer micelles, and polymeric nanoparticles, and dendrimers are the most used organic nanocarriers. Inorganic nanocarriers include carbon-based materials (carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphenes), quantum dots (QDs), metal and metal oxide nanoparticles, superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs), and mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNPs). Hybrid organic–inorganic nanocarriers also have great potential in nanomedicine. Functionalized nanomaterials are components in the transducers of diverse biosensors for clinical analyses.

Healthcare-associated (nosocomial) infections (HAIs), most of which are produced by recalcitrant pathogenic biofilms, can be prevented and controlled using smart functionalized nanocoatings, which are able to prevent bacteria from settling onto biotic or abiotic surfaces, to kill already settled bacteria or disrupt the molecular mechanisms and signaling pathways responsible for recalcitrance development. Nevertheless, when it comes to the biomedical application of functionalized nanomaterials, biocompatibility, biodegradability, lack of immunogenicity, and toxicity are primordial importance issues that must be carefully addressed.

The aim of this Special Issue is to highlight the newest and most significant achievements in developing novel functionalized nanomaterials and nanostructures that can be applied in the biomedical field.

The first volume below entitled "Functionalized Nanomaterials and Structures for Biomedical Applications" attracted great interest from authors and readers. Therefore, we will continue to this topic as a second volume.

We kindly invite you to submit a manuscript(s) for this Special Issue. Full papers, communications, and reviews are all welcome.

Dr. Paul Cătălin Balaure
Dr. Alexandru Mihai Grumezescu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Materials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• nanomedicine
• stimuli-responsive nanocarriers
• targeted and controlled release drug delivery
• theranostic nanoparticles
• personalized medicine
• biosensors
• healthcare-associated infections
• recalcitrant pathogenic biofilms
• smart engineered antibiofilm nanocoatings
• nanocarrier toxicity