MULTIFUNCTIONAL NANOPARTICLE PLATFORMS FOR BIOMEDICAL APPLICATIONS: A REVIEW

Many scientific and technological areas have benefited, in the last few decades, considerably from the introduction of nanomaterials especially the biomedical field. Despite the use of a myriad of drugs to diagnose and treat diseases, the dilemma is how to selectively target diseased cells while lessening collateral harmfulness to surrounding healthy tissues. Novel advances in theragnostics showed that nanoparticles (NPs), owing to their exceptional physicochemical properties, are an exceptional integrated platform for this purpose. This review paper first depicts nanoparticles in their general structural aspects and second, in their application in medicine (bioconjugation with drugs, cellular internalization, drug delivery and phagocytosis).