Polymers and Nanostructured Materials for Drug Nanoparticles, Bioimaging, and Cell Delivery

Abstract

Polymers can be designed, synthesized, and modified for a wide range of applications. The use of biopolymers and nanostructured materials (either made of polymers or fabricated with polymers) has been extensively investigated for biomedical and biological applications. In this article, we describe the use of polymers for the preparation of poorly water‐soluble drug nanoparticles (covering top‐down and bottom‐up approaches, selection of stabilizers, and encapsulation materials), bioimaging (covering polymers, small molecules, nanoparticles for various imaging techniques including X‐ray radiography, positron emission tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, ultrasonography, fluorescent imaging, photoacoustic imaging, and multimodal imaging), and cell encapsulation and cell delivery (covering the basics, important parameters, and applications). We finish the article with perspectives in these exciting research areas. This article is written with the basics and recent progress in the relevant research areas and thus is suitable for a broad readership.