Inorganic nanoparticles in biology: drug carriers and auxiliary tools in bioimaging and bioanalytics.

Among various nano-scaled materials composed from a spectrum of chemical compounds, inorganic nanoparticles are very attractive due to their physico-chemical properties, as well as their availability, simplicity, possibility of modifications, stability and biocompatibility. They are, on the one hand inevitable tool in advanced analytical chemistry, in particular for studying of biologically-relevant processes, but also important as functional parts of the systems designed for controlled and targeted delivery of medicaments for treatment of a variety of diseases and for imaging. So far, thousands of compounds and systems have been developed for the above-mentioned purposes, but there are only a few reviews dealing with these topics. The aim of this review is, thus, to summarize recent applications of nano-structured inorganic materials in biology-related investigations and to give a future prospective from the standpoint of biology.