Gold nanoshells: A ray of hope in cancer diagnosis and treatment

Abstract

Ideal properties of gold nanoshell has resulted in making it a ray of hope in biomedical areas such as targeted drug delivery, cancer detection and treatment and in eliminating tumors without harming normal healthy cells. Gold nanoshells are spherical particles with diameter ranging from 10-200 nm consisting of a dielectric core that is covered by a thin metallic shell of gold. An important role of gold nanoparticle based agents is their multifunctional nature. This review focuses on physics, synthesis and biomedical applications of gold nanoshells due to their inert nature, non-cytotoxicity and biocompatibility.