Inorganic hollow nanoparticles and nanotubes in nanomedicine: Part 1. Drug/gene delivery applications

Recent cytotoxicity studies on carbon nanotubes have shown that the biocompatibility of nanomaterial might be determined mainly by surface functionalization, rather than by size, shape, and material. Although the cytotoxicity for individual inorganic hollow nanomaterials should be extensively tested in vitro and in vivo, potential safety concerns about the use of inorganic nanomaterials in biomedical applications could be alleviated with proper surface treatment. Inorganic hollow nanoparticles and nanotubes have attracted great interest in nanomedicine because of the generic transporting ability of porous material and a wide range of functionality that arises from their unique optical, electrical, and physical properties. In this review, we describe recent developments of hollow and porous inorganic nanomaterials in nanomedicine, especially for drug/gene delivery.