The advancing uses of nano-graphene in drug delivery

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.

Keywords:

• combined therapy
• drug and gene delivery
• graphene based nanocomposites
• nano-graphene

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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