Nanomaterials for cancer therapies

Cancer is one of the most deadly diseases in the world. In recent years, nanotechnology, as a unique technology, has been comprehensively applied in the therapy of cancer through diagnosis, imaging and theranostics. Additionally, with the emergence of advanced biomaterials which are capable of being applied in biomedical, research in cancer nanotechnology has made significant progress. Particularly, nanomaterials with dimensions below several hundred nanometers are intensively studied among these advanced biomaterials. In past decades, a number of organic and inorganic nanomaterials have emerged as novel tools for cancer diagnostics and therapeutics due to their unique characteristics, like their solubilization effect, drug protection, passive/active tumor targeting, controlled release of drugs which result in enhanced anticancer efficacy while reducing the side effects. In this review, we first provide a brief description of the key properties of nanomaterials, such as nanoparticle (NP) size, surface properties and tumor targeting. The major goal of this review is to summarize the achievements that have been made in the development of the application of nanomaterials for cancer therapies, along with a short description of their general characteristics and preparation of various kinds of nanoparticles.