Organic-Inorganic Hybrid Nanomaterials with Optical Properties for Use in Medical Applications

Abstract

The tremendous developments of materials with fine tuning of the composition, shape, size and chemical functionalities at the nanometre scale has opened a wide range of applications in medicine. An overview of hybrid nanomaterials for applications in biological environment will be presented. The use of functional particles for medical imaging and therapy will be especially discussed. These functional systems usually require combination of different properties such as luminescence (imaging) or molecular recognition (targeting) and non-linear optical properties (therapy), together with size/shape control and biocompatibility (cells diffusion, solubility, biochemical stability). For example series of hybrid metal or oxide nanoparticles can be prepared for medical imaging. Some of them are already commercially available. The most recent work in this field will be presented and the future developments will be discussed. For example one can expect to combine several imaging techniques (multimodal contrast agents) or imaging and therapy in the same nanocomposite. The use of hybrid systems combining inorganic (metal or oxide) with their organic counterparts shows the most promising routes towards such applications in biological environment. New trends in the field of phototherapy will be discussed.