Chapter 22 - Nanomaterials in biomedicine: Synthesis and applications

Abstract

In past few decades, synthesis of nanomaterials with novel characteristics and their application in the field of medical science has gained a huge interest among the scientific community. This leads to emergence of an innovative branch of therapeutic science known as nanomedicine. Nanomaterials are mono- to polydisperse small-sized particles with size in the range of 1–100 nm in numerous shapes. The nanomaterials possess several special properties like flexibility, large surface to volume ratio, better tensile strength, optical, and electronic characteristics. These novel materials play major role in identification of disease and treatment such as reagents of diagnostic kits, bioimaging material, therapeutic agents in form of nanoemulsion/nanoformulation, drug designing, and effective delivery tools/cargo’s such as liposome, components of clinical implants. Other promising applications are in bone regeneration such as nano‐based scaffold development and modifications to increase biocompatibility and stability. In this chapter, the insight of the use of different nanomaterials such as metal and their oxides, carbon nanotubes, dendrimers for biomedical applications has been described. The chapter also discusses the synthesis pathways for nanomaterial as their unique characteristic properties such as biocompatibility and immunocompatibility which depend on synthesis methodology adapted and thus make them useful in different biomedical applications.