Multifunctional stimuli responsive polymer-gated iron and gold-embedded silica nano golf balls: Nanoshuttles for targeted on-demand theranostics

Magnetic and gold nanoparticles embedded in silica nanospheres (MGNSs) can be used for remotely targeted delivery of therapeutic molecules. Despite the great potential of controlled delivery of drugs and active biomolecules to target cells, extensive research has not led to satisfactory results. A team headed by Ratneshwar Lal at University of California, San Diego, has now succeeded in developing MGNSs as a next-generation multifunctional delivery system. The authors demonstrated the effectiveness of MGNSs for controlled, highly efficient drug uptake and release using human cell culture. MGNSs show great promise for cell-specific controlled drug-release systems. The use of a magnetic field offers potential for magnetic guidance of MGNSs to precisely target specific anatomic locations, in particular hard-to-reach sites in the skeleton.