Magnetic Functionalized Nanoparticles for Biomedical, Drug Delivery and Imaging Applications

Abstract

Medicine is constantly looking for new and improved treatments for diseases, which need to have a high efficacy and be cost-effective, creating a large demand on scientific research to discover such new treatments. One important aspect of any treatment is the ability to be able to target only the illness and not cause harm to another healthy part of the body. For this reason, metallic nanoparticles have been and are currently being extensively researched for their possible medical uses, including medical imaging, antibacterial and antiviral applications. Superparamagnetic metal nanoparticles possess properties that allow them to be directed around the body with a magnetic field or directed to a magnetic implant, which opens up the potential to conjugate various bio-cargos to the nanoparticles that could then be directed for treatment in the body. Here we report on some of the current bio-medical applications of various metal nanoparticles, including single metal nanoparticles, functionalized metal nanoparticles, and core-shell metal nanoparticles using a core of Fe₃O₄ as well as synthesis methods of these core-shell nanoparticles.

Keywords: Drug delivery; Nanomedicine; Nanoparticle; Nanoparticle synthesis.

Fig. 1

Some of the current uses of nanoparticles in medicine

Fig. 2

A generic representation of the interaction of reverse micelles containing salts the react to form metal nanoparticles

Fig. 3

A TEM image of the nanoparticles synthesized by Rudakovskaya et al. As can be seen, the nanoparticles are roughly spherically shaped with an average size of 30 nm [76]

Fig. 4

A TEM image of the nanoparticles synthesized by Rawal et al. These nanoparticles have a size distribution of 20–100 nm [83]

Fig. 5

An MRI contrast image of a rat cerebral cortex pre- (left) and post-treatment (right). The area containing the AuNPs is ringed in red

Fig. 6

Darkfield imaging of A431 lung cancer cells treated with AuNPs; the bright yellow/orange dots are nanoparticles within the cells

Fig. 7

A pictorial representation of the applications of core/shell nanoparticles