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Nanoparticle design and manufacturing in cancer nanotechnology: challenges of drug delivery, targeted treatment and selective detection

Edited by Å½eljka Krpetić (University of Salford, UK)

Nanoparticle design is one of the fastest growing fields of applied science. Purposely designing and manufacturing nanoparticles for cancer nanotechnology applications is promising due to the reduced side effects nanoparticles have in diagnostics and treatment of cancer. Challenges arise when tackling the parameters that play a key role for targeting of specific tumours and managing to overcome the effects that may create obstacles when working in realistic biological environments. 
Moreover, since nanomaterials destined for clinical use and nanomedicine, in general, require special attention, novel approaches for nanoparticle manufacturing, handling and characterisation are required to minimise the risks associated with contamination, and address the questions of nanoparticle administration, incorrect dosing of the nanoparticles directly relating to the challenges in current nanoparticle characterisation.
This special collection in Cancer Nanotechnology provides a collection of original research papers and expert reviews that cover a range of approaches in the field of nanofabrication and/or advanced nanoparticle characterisation that show advancement in design of nano-based tools for drug delivery, targeted treatment and selective detection of cancer.

Before submitting your manuscript, please ensure you have carefully read the submission guidelines for Cancer Nanotechnology.

New articles in the collection will be added here as they are published.


  1. Nanosized drug delivery systems have rapidly emerged as a promising approach to tumor therapy, which still have many challenges in clinical application. In this study, doxorubicin-loaded O-carboxymethyl chitos...

    Authors: Dong Meng, Lu Guo, Dandan Shi, Xiao Sun, Mengmeng Shang, Shan Xiao, Xiaoying Zhou, Yading Zhao, Xiaoxuan Wang and Jie Li
    Citation: Cancer Nanotechnology 2023 14:19
  2. The ongoing loss of human life owing to various forms of cancer necessitates the development of a more effective/honorable therapeutic approach. Moreover, finding a novel green-synthesized anti-cancer therapy ...

    Authors: Nouf M. Alyami, Hanadi M. Alyami and Rafa Almeer
    Citation: Cancer Nanotechnology 2022 13:26
  3. Photothermal therapy (PTT) has become an attractive approach for cancer treatment due to its merits of minimal invasiveness, location selectivity, and suitability for various cancer types. In PTT, photosensiti...

    Authors: Xinyu Qu, Yixing Chen, Zhuyun Cai, Xinyu Zhao, Hua Zeng, Xiaohao Liu, Shuo Tan, Bingqiang Lu, Rui Gao and Feng Chen
    Citation: Cancer Nanotechnology 2022 13:24
  4. Targeted delivery of chemotherapeutic drugs to tumour cells is a major challenge for cancer chemotherapy. Recent studies show that tumour cell-derived microparticles can be used as vectors to package chemother...

    Authors: Zhou Jiang, Kai Li, Yongzhong Luo, Bin Chen, Fanfan Meng, Huifang Yi, Lemeng Zhang, Hua Yang, Wenwei Zhou, Tianli Cheng, Huihuang Yi, Qing Yi, Xiaoping Wen, Sheng Hu, Hongyan Liu and Jianhua Chen
    Citation: Cancer Nanotechnology 2022 13:19
  5. Despite the increasing interest in combination therapy for the treatment of cancer, controlled delivery of different therapeutics with high body-clearance efficacy and cancer cell specificity remained a great ...

    Authors: Bei Liu, Xiaoning Liu, Xiangyu Zhang, Xi Wu, Chuanbo Li, Zhaogang Sun and Hongqian Chu
    Citation: Cancer Nanotechnology 2022 13:18
  6. Fluorescent silica nanoparticles have been extensively utilised in a broad range of biological applications and are facilitated by their predictable, well-understood, flexible chemistry and apparent biocompati...

    Authors: Vladimir Gubala, Giorgia Giovannini, Filip Kunc, Marco P. Monopoli and Colin J. Moore
    Citation: Cancer Nanotechnology 2020 11:1
  7. Chemotherapeutic agents have limited efficacy and resistance to them limits today and will limit tomorrow our capabilities of cure. Resistance to treatment with anticancer drugs results from a variety of facto...

    Authors: Eudald Casals, Muriel F. Gusta, Macarena Cobaleda-Siles, Ana Garcia-Sanz and Victor F. Puntes
    Citation: Cancer Nanotechnology 2017 8:7
  8. Early diagnosis, monitoring and treatment selection of cancer represent major challenges in medicine. The definition of the complex clinical and molecular landscape of cancer requires the combination of multip...

    Authors: Luca Guerrini, Nicolas Pazos-Perez, Eduardo Garcia-Rico and Ramon Alvarez-Puebla
    Citation: Cancer Nanotechnology 2017 8:5