Shape and surface engineering of gold nanoparticles for cancer therapeutics and gene delivery

Abstract

The problems with current drug delivery systems are not only the low target efficiency with which drugs are delivered at the disease sites but also the high probability that damages of normal tissue will occur due to toxicity of delivered drugs. For these reasons, nanotechnology has been introduced to minimize these adverse effects and to maximize drug delivery efficiency to disease sites. In these researches, the gold nanoparticles are biocompatible as drug carriers, are easy to change shape and size, and mass production is easier than other materials. Therefore, gold nanoparticles was mainly used in these studies. In addition, gold nanoparticles have the convenience that it is possible to observe with the optical device without further attaching fluorescence to the surface of the gold nanoparticles. In these researches, we examined the excretion rate of gold nanoparticles from the our body and the accumulated efficiency at the targeting cells in diseased tissues depending on their various shape and we also introduced the new gene delivery system by applying the photothermal effect of gold nanoparticles.