Multifunctional materials for biotechnology: Opportunities and challenges

Abstract

The use of multifunctional materials in different biomedical applications has attracted much attention in recent years. Desire for biocompatible devices has paved the way for highly degradable and biocompatible materials that are specifically designed for targeted drug delivery and imaging contrast agents. Cellular and molecular interactions as well as those for engineered materials (atoms, molecules, and molecular fragments) are the foundation of biotechnology, where smart multifunctional materials can serve as targeted drug delivery carriers, able to release therapeutic agents or genes in large doses into malignant cells without harming healthy cells. Simultaneously, these systems have the potential to radically change oncology, allowing for easy detection followed by effective targeted treatment at the onset of the disease. In this context, given the exhaustive possibilities available to polymeric particle chemistry, research has been directed at multifunctional materials that combine tumor targeting, tumor therapy, and tumor imaging in an all-in-one system, providing a useful multimodal approach in the battle against cancer. In this context, a wide range of multifunctional systems, formed by liposomes, polymericcoated magnetic particles, nanoemulsions, micelles, and hydrogels, have shown tremendous progress in biotechnology applications. These engineered multifunctional materials have evolved to possess interesting properties such as prolonged life cycling while circulating in blood, target specificity, and increased cell penetration of the therapeutic drugs and molecules. Current research is focused on understanding and taking advantage of the features of a tumor’s microenvironment, including pH and temperature changes.