Accurate and precise drug delivery
is the key to successful therapy.
Monoclonal antibodies, which can transport therapeutic payload to
cells expressing specific markers, have paved the way for targeted
drug delivery and currently show tremendous clinical success. However,
in those abundant cases, when a disease cannot be characterized by
a single specific marker, more sophisticated drug delivery systems
are required. To enhance targeting accuracy, diverse smart materials
have been proposed that can also react to stimuli like variations
of pH, temperature, magnetic field, etc. Furthermore, over the past
few years a new category of smart materials has emerged, which can
not only respond to virtually any biochemical or physical stimulus
but also simultaneously analyze several cues and, moreover, can be
programmed to use Boolean logic for such analysis. These advanced
biocomputing agents have the potential to become a basis for future
nanorobotic devices that could overcome some of the grand challenges
of modern biomedicine. Here, with a brief introduction to the multidisciplinary
field of biomolecular computing, we will review the concepts of nanomaterials
with built-in biocomputing capabilities, which can be potentially
used for drug delivery and other theranostic applications.