Synthesis of Magnetic Nanoparticles for Biomedical Applications

Magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) have been extensively studied for their biomedical applications, especially in cancer diagnosis and therapy. Recent progresses in synthesis and modification of MNPs widen and promote their biomedical applications. MNPs could load drugs/genes for chemotherapy and gene therapy. Due to the hysteresis loss and/or Néel and Brownian relaxations of MNPs under an alternating magnetic field, MNPs could be thermo seeds for hyperthermia therapy. Also, MNPs could be contrast agent for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Furthermore, the combination of MNPs with functional components could be a multifunctional platform for diagnosis and therapy. In this review, we briefly summarize the mainly used methods to the synthesis and efficient surface engineering strategies of MNPs. Importantly, some recent progresses in MNPs-based cancer diagnosis and therapy are highlighted.