Recent advances in the synthesis and characterization of functional materials on the nanometer scale have allowed their exploration for applications in many fields, including biological and biomedical areas. Emerging inorganic nanoparticles, such as carbon nanotubes, quantum dots, mesoporous silica/gold/supermagnetic nanoparticles, have been widely used in biomedical research with great optimism for cancer diagnosis and therapy. The main therapeutic applications of inorganic nanomaterials have focused on drug and gene delivery, targeted therapy, thermotherapy and photodynamic therapy. Recently, hybrid silica-based nanoparticles have attracted a great deal of attention as drug delivery systems due to their outstanding features of nontoxicity, tunable surface, high loading capacity and modifiable morphology. In this seminar, I will discuss our recent research on the development and application of hybrid silica-based nanoparticles in photodynamic therapy and drug delivery for cancer treatment.
