Abstract
Introduction: Graphene has been received with great interest in various fields including biomedical applications. Due to its ultrahigh surface area and easy surface functionalization, single-layered graphene has been intensively explored for drug and gene delivery. Utilizing their intrinsic high near-infrared absorbance, graphene and its derivatives have been found to be excellent candidates for multimodal imaging guided combined cancer photothermal and chemo- and/or photodynamic therapies.
Areas covered: This review summarizes recent studies on the biomedical applications of various graphene-based nanomaterials. The authors provide a comprehensive summary on using properly functionalized nano-graphene and its derivatives for drug and gene delivery, as well as combination therapy of cancer.
Expert opinion: Regarding biomedical applications, the authors find that proper surface functionalization and controlled sizes of graphene-based nanomaterials are two crucial factors for efficient drug and gene delivery. Although a lot of work has demonstrated the successful delivery of anticancer drugs and genes using graphene-based nanomaterials as carriers, the correlations of their surface functionalization and size distribution and their therapeutic outcomes need more exploration. On the other hand, the long-term toxicological and metabolic behaviors of nano-graphene still merit significantly more effort before clinical use.
Declaration of interest
This work was partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21207164, 81471716, 81302383 31400861), the National ‘973’ Program of China (2014CB931900), and a Project Funded by the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.
Notes
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