Functional Nanomaterials in Biomedicine

<p>The great success of nanotechnology promotes a tremendous revolution in the biomedical field. Functional nanomaterials have been widely applied for the treatment of various diseases such as cancer bacterial infection diabetes inflammation and neurodegenerative disorders. Various therapeutic nanoplatforms have been developed with therapeutic functions and intelligent properties. However the development of nanomedicine suffers from several challenges prior to their clinical applications. For instance disease detection in an early stage is a critical challenge for nanomedicine. It is difficult to detect disease markers (e.g. proteins genes or cancer circulating cells) so nanoprobes with high sensitivity and selectivity are required. Moreover to overcome drug resistance it is highly desirable to develop functional nanomedicines with the combination of multiple therapeutic modalities such as chemotherapy photothermal therapy photodynamic therapy chemodynamic therapy radiotherapy starving therapy and immunotherapy. Additionally the stability and degradability of most nanomedicines in biofluids should be carefully evaluated before their administration to humans. This book provides researchers with the latest investigations and findings in this field.</p>