Multifunctional Mesoporous Silica Nanocomposite Nanoparticles for Theranostic Applications

Clever combinations of different types of functional nanostructured materials will enable the development of multifunctional nanomedical platforms for multimodal imaging or simultaneous diagnosis and therapy. Mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) possess unique structural features such as their large surface areas, tunable nanometer-scale pore sizes, and well-defined surface properties. Therefore, they are ideal platforms for constructing multifunctional materials that incorporate a variety of functional nanostructured materials. In this Account, we discuss recent progress by our group and other researchers in the design and fabrication of multifunctional nanocomposite nanoparticles based on mesoporous silica…