Role of Nanoparticles and Nanomaterials in Drug Delivery: An Overview

Abstract

Biomedical applications of green synthesized metallic nanoparticles have the most significant advantage nowadays due to these unique magnetic and mechanical properties along with specific characteristics like heat, melting point, and surface area which make them suitable for biomedical applications like imaging, gene targeting, drug delivery, and biosensor development. The nanoparticles should have some qualities to be efficient carriers of drug, like magnetic properties; and the capability to function at the cellular and molecular levels of biological interactions makes the nanoparticles excellent agents to improve the contrast in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). For biomedical applications, these days nanotechnology has enhanced the features and designs, explicitly the essential requirements and properties of magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs). Magnetic nanoparticles with magnetic properties have been used with higher magnetic moments and antifouling surfaces, and increased functionalities are developed for application in suitable clinical needs like detection, diagnosis, and treatment of malignant tumors and cardiovascular and neurological diseases. Development of a new generation of targeted drug delivery systems, diagnoses, and treatment of a range of life-threatening diseases through green synthesized nanoparticles is considered to be the most efficient treatment method. Because the synthesis of nanoparticles is from a natural source and is high-speed, eco-friendly, cost-effective, nontoxic, and biocompatible, the nanoparticles are applied in biomedical sectors. Passive dissemination mechanisms to target, the release of therapeutically active molecules, poor specificity, and dose-limited toxicity are the major problems associated with the conventional or traditional delivery system. However, delivery specificity has always been a challenge. But due to the avenues of nanotechnology, the synthesized nanoparticles have found that toxicity problem can be easily overcome in the development of new, improved, and efficient drug delivery systems like targeted tissue methods. Biologically synthesized nanoparticles are used to treat many dreadful diseases like cancer and cardiovascular disease, and are used in other disease detection and diagnosis. Moreover, bioconjugation of nanoparticles makes the poorly soluble anticancer drugs more effective. The advanced nontoxic nanomaterial drug delivery technique can be used to diagnose different types of cancer, and moreover, bionanomaterials can be potential nanocarriers for the delivery of drug and many critical therapeutic uses. The role of nanoparticles and nanomaterials in drug delivery is broadly discussed in this chapter.