Gold – people lust after it, buy things with it and decorate objects and themselves with it. But what many people don’t know is that gold can also help to cure cancer.
Gold nanoparticles have a combination of properties, different from bulk gold, which enable them to act as potent, selective and multifunctional anti-cancer agents. They can be used in photothermal cancer therapy, drug delivery, gene therapy and cell cycle regulation.
In their Chem Soc Rev tutorial review, Mostafa El-Sayed and colleagues from Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA, discuss these anti-cancer applications as well as strategies for the synthesis/design of biomedical gold nanoparticle conjugates.
Also of interest:
Gold – Chemistry, materials and catalysis: A Chem Soc Rev themed issue
Gold 100 Article Collection: 100 articles freely available thanks to the generous sponsorship of the World Gold Council
