Engineering of mesoporous silica nanoparticles for in vivo cancer imaging and therapy

Abstract

Mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) possess many attractive properties, such as good biocompatibility, large surface area, high pore volume, uniform and tunable pore size, and have been intensively investigated as novel drug delivery systems for more than 10 years. Although in vitro imaging and therapeutic applications by using MSNs have been reached a great success, transferring these to the in vivo level is still facing big challenges and is now under intensive investigations. In this chapter, we summarized the very recent progress and future directions of engineering MSNs for biological imaging and therapy in vivo.