Biologically synthesized metal nanoparticles: recent advancement and future perspectives in cancer theranostics

Over the last two decades, nanotechnology has formed the most promising discipline within science likely to present solutions for the growing challenges in biomedical applications such as drug delivery, therapeutics and diagnostics [1–3]. Synthesis of metal nanoparticles, especially gold, silver and platinum (gold: AuNPs; copper, silver: AgNPs, platinum and quantum dots), with a particular shape, size and morphology is an important area of modern research. These nanoparticles are extensively used as an alternative strategy for cancer theranostics (therapeutics + diagnostics) due to their unusual physical, chemical, electronic and biological properties. Hence, economically cheap and eco-friendly methods for the synthesis of metal nanoparticles that could be useful for cancer theranostics are becoming an emerging field in biomedical research. In this context, biologically synthesized nanoparticles (b-NPs) using various biological sources (such as plants and microbes) overcome several disadvantages over chemically synthesized nanoparticles (c-NPs) [4–8]. Therefore, b-NPs are used for several biomedical applications especially in the area of cancer theranostics.

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