Nanorobots are safe
and exhibit powerful functionalities, including
delivery, therapy, and diagnosis. Therefore, they are in high demand
for the development of new cancer therapies. Although many studies
have contributed to the progressive development of the nanorobot system
for anticancer drug delivery, these systems still face some critical
limitations, such as potentially toxic materials in the nanorobots,
unreasonable sizes for passive targeting, and the lack of several
essential functions of the nanorobot for anticancer drug delivery
including sensing, active targeting, controlling drug release, and
sufficient drug loading capacity. Here, we developed a multifunctional
nanorobot system capable of precise magnetic control, sufficient drug
loading for chemotherapy, light-triggered controlled drug release,
light absorption for photothermal therapy, enhanced magnetic resonance
imaging, and tumor sensing. The developed nanorobot system exhibits
an in vitro synergetic antitumor effect of photothermal
therapy and chemotherapy and outstanding tumor-targeting efficiency
in both in vitro and in vivo environments.
The results of this study encourage further explorations of an efficient
active drug delivery system for cancer treatment and the development
of nanorobot systems for other biomedical applications.
The process of evaluating the efficacy and toxicity of drugs is important in the production of new drugs to treat diseases. Testing in humans is the most accurate method, but there are technical and ethical limitations. To overcome these limitations, various models have been developed in which responses to various external stimuli can be observed to help guide future trials. In particular, three-dimensional (3D) cell culture has a great advantage in simulating the physical and biological functions of tissues in the human body. This article reviews the biomaterials currently used to improve cellular functions in 3D culture and the contributions of 3D culture to cancer research, stem cell culture and drug and toxicity screening.
Bioinspired materials have received substantial attention across biomedical, biological, and drug delivery research because of their high biocompatibility and lower toxicity compared with synthetic materials.
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