This review summarizes the recent advances in layered double hydroxide (LDH)-based nanomaterials for biomedical applications including drug/gene delivery, bioimaging diagnosis, cancer therapy, biosensing, tissue engineering, and anti-bacteria.

Layered rare-earth hydroxides have begun to gather increasing attention as potential theranostic platforms owing to their extensive intercalation chemistry combined with magnetic and fluorescent properties. In this work, the potential...

We report the self-assembly of anti-cancer drug-loaded solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs) from spray dried microparticles comprising poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) loaded with glyceryl tristearate (GTS) and either indomethacin (IMC) or 5-fluorouracil (5-FU). When the spray dried microparticles are added to water, the PVP matrix dissolves and the GTS and drug self-assemble into SLNs. The SLNs provide a non-toxic delivery platform for both hydrophobic (indomethacin) and hydrophilic (5-fluorouracil) drugs. They show extended release profiles over more than 24 h, and in permeation studies the drug cargo is seen to accumulate inside cancer cells. This overcomes major issues with achieving local intestinal delivery of these active ingredients, in that IMC permeates well and thus will enter the systemic circulation and potentially lead to side effects, while 5-FU remains in the lumen of the small intestine and will be secreted without having any therapeutic benefit. The SLN formulations are as effective as the pure drugs in terms of their ability to induce cell death. Our approach represents a new and simple route to the fabrication of SLNs: by assembling these from spraydried microparticles on demand, we can circumvent the low storage stability which plagues SLN formulations.

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Drug delivery systems are used to carry an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) in order to improve its properties, for instance enhancing the precision of targeting, protecting it from degradation, or controlling the rate of release. A wide range of inorganic materials can be used to achieve these goals. This chapter will review the key recent developments in this field, with a focus on the four families of materials which have attracted most attention: 3D metal organic frameworks (MOFs), 3D mesoporous silicas (MSNs), 2D layered materials, and 0D inorganic nanoparticles (MNPs). These systems can have a very wide range of physical properties and chemical functionalities. For instance, MOFs and MSNs are porous and thus can offer high drug loadings, while stability varies significantly. MOFs often require functionalisation and protection from rapid degradation prior to cargo delivery, while MSNs and MNPs can persist in vivo. Layered materials also vary widely in stability but can result in effective targeting and extended release profiles. In all cases, the presence of an inorganic species in addition to the API can aid targeting and permit imaging to be performed concomitantly with drug delivery. Post-fabrication functionalisation is also possible, allowing further augmentation of tuning of properties. Inorganic systems thus have huge potential in drug delivery, but there are also very significant barriers to clinical adoption which need to be overcome to allow them to reach their full potential.