Functional Nanomaterials

According to the recent GLOBOCAN report, the International Agency for Research on Cancer has estimated that globally one person out of five develop cancer in their lifetime. The chemotherapy treatment may become the cause of the severe damage of one or multiple organ systems in the patient¿s body in the long run and sometimes become the cause of death. Therefore, alternate therapies are in need. Few advanced alternates like immunotherapy, targeted therapy, and hormone therapy are in clinical trials. Nanomaterials are objects with at least one dimension (out of three dimensions) of length is less than or equal to 100 nanometers (nm). To prevent the agglomeration and to minimise the toxicity, nanomaterials are coated with non-toxic synthetic polymers or biopolymers. This is also a part of the synthesis of nanomaterials and has been discussed in detail in the dedicated chapter for the synthesis. However, the toxicity of nanomaterials, called the nanotoxicity, is a crucial aspect while considering health care applications. Nanotoxicity needs a special attention and we have devoted a whole chapter on nanotoxicity in this book.