The advancing uses of nano-graphene in drug delivery

INTRODUCTION: Graphene has been received with great interest in various fields including biomedical applications. Due to its ultrahigh surface area and easy surface functionalization, single-layered graphene has been intensively explored for drug and gene delivery. Utilizing their intrinsic high near-infrared absorbance, graphene and its derivatives have been found to be excellent candidates for multimodal imaging guided combined cancer photothermal and chemo- and/or photodynamic therapies. AREAS COVERED: This review summarizes recent studies on the biomedical applications of various graphene-based nanomaterials. The authors provide a comprehensive summary on using properly functionalized nano-graphene and its derivatives for drug and gene delivery, as well as combination therapy of cancer. EXPERT OPINION: Regarding biomedical applications, the authors find that proper surface functionalization and controlled sizes of graphene-based nanomaterials are two crucial factors for efficient drug and gene delivery. Although a lot of work has demonstrated the successful delivery of anticancer drugs and genes using graphene-based nanomaterials as carriers, the correlations of their surface functionalization and size distribution and their therapeutic outcomes need more exploration. On the other hand, the long-term toxicological and metabolic behaviors of nano-graphene still merit significantly more effort before clinical use.