Nanomaterials for Biomedical Applications

Dear Colleagues,

Nanomaterials have recently become one of the most active research fields in the areas of engineering, chemistry, solid state physics, biotechnology and biomedicine. One reason for this interest is that nanomaterials display novel and often enhanced properties compared to traditional materials, which opens up the potential for new technological applications. The use of nanomaterials in the biomedical field presents many revolutionary opportunities in the fight against all kinds of cancer, cardiac and neurodegenerative disorders, infection and other diseases. The nanoparticle platforms that have been extensively explored for biomedical applications are predominantly either purely inorganic or organic materials. For example organic nanomaterials such as nanocrystals, liposomes, dendrimers, hyper-branched organic polymers, micelles and polymeric hydrogel nanoparticles have been widely used as imaging and therapeutic agents. Recently, inorganic nanomaterials such as quantum dots, superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles, metallic nanoparticles and metal oxides have also attracted great attention for biomedical applications.

In another relevant example, hybrid nanoparticles are composed of both inorganic and organic components that can not only retain the beneficial features of both inorganic and organic nanomaterials, but also possess unique advantages over the other two types. For instance, the ability to combine a multitude of organic and inorganic components in a modular fashion allows for systematic tuning of the properties for biomedical applications. Hybrid nanoparticles have been proposed for the targeted release of diagnostic agents and drugs, and even as stimuli responsive nanocarriers to enhance therapy selectivity. The combination of these materials with current efforts to identify genes, proteins and metabolites implicated in human disease and use system biology approaches to develop new prognostic tools and more targeted therapies for patients, will dramatically impact healthcare in the coming years.

This Special Issue focuses on the use of organic/inorganic or hybrid nanomaterials for biomedical applications. We invite full papers, communications and reviews covering one or several of the topics included in (or related to) the keywords below.

Prof. Dr. Anne Marie Healy
Asstis. Prof. Eduardo Ruiz-Hernandez
Asstit. Prof. Juan Luis Vivero-Escoto
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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