Chapter 1 - Surface functionalized hybrid nanomaterials: Implications in biosensing and therapeutics

Abstract

In the arena of nanoscience and nanotechnology, hybrid materials have shown great promise for various biomedical applications including cell type recognition, disease diagnosis, targeted therapeutics, intracellular imaging, and drug/gene delivery as well as optoelectronic device fabrication. In particular, functionalized semiconductor nanoparticles (NPs) or quantum dots (QDs) are among the most exciting nano platforms, due to their unique combination of physicochemical and optical properties. A pre-requisite for moving toward such applications is fabrication of NPs with well-controlled size and shape distributions, well-defined surface chemistry, biocompatibility, and a unique optical and electronic property is the basis of all such biological applications. Central to tackling these issues are surface functionalization of nanomaterials and elucidating the interfaces and interface between nanomaterials and biomolecules. Importantly, this interface demonstrates focusing effects on the in vitro and in vivo applications of nanomaterials, such as multiplexed detections, biosensing, multimodal bioimaging, drug delivery, and phototherapy.