Title:Biomedical Applications of Gold Nanoparticles
VOLUME: 15 ISSUE: 16
Author(s):Daniela Cabuzu, Andreea Cirja, Rebecca Puiu and Alexandru Mihai Grumezescu
Affiliation:Department of Science and Engineering of Oxide Materials and Nanomaterials, Faculty of Applied Chemistry and Materials Science, Politehnica University of Bucharest, Romania.
Keywords:Gold nanoparticles, Biomedical applications, Nanomedicine, Bioimaging, Targeting, Delivery, Biocompatibility.
Abstract:Gold nanoparticles may be used in different domains, one of most important being the
biomedical field. They have suitable properties for controlled drug delivery, cancer treatment, biomedical
imaging, diagnosis and many others, due to their excellent compatibility with the human
organism, low toxicity and tunable stability, small dimensions, and possibility to interact with a variety
of substances. They also have optical properties, being able to absorb infrared light. Moreover,
due to their large surface and the ability of being coated with a variety of therapeutic agents, gold nanoparticles have
been showed a great potential to be used as drug delivery systems. Gold nanoparticles are intensively studied in biomedicine,
and recent studies revealed the fact that they can cross the blood-brain barrier, may interact with the DNA
and produce genotoxic effects. Because of their ability of producing heat, they can target and kill the tumors, being
used very often in photodynamic therapy. Gold nanoparticles can be synthesized in many ways, but the most common
are the biological and chemical methods, however the chemical method offers the advantage of better controlling the
size and shape of the nanoparticles. In this review, we present the principal applications of gold nanoparticles in the
biomedical field, like cancer treatment, amyloid-like fibrillogenesis inhibitors, transplacental treatment, the development
of specific scaffolds and drug delivery systems.
