Iron Oxide Nanoparticles in Biosensors, Imaging and Drug Delivery Applications—A Complete Tool

Abstract

Iron Oxide Nanoparticles(IONPs) have been extensively studied and have found applications in biomedical engineering. Iron Oxide owing to its unique biocompatibility and therefore low toxicity have come up as an amazing category of nanoparticles to be used as drug delivery vehicle especially being used for cancer therapies e.g. hyperthermia. Alongside IONPs have found a great deal of application into biosensors e.g. Glucose sensor, BPA sensor, Gas sensors. In this paper we have reviewed the different biosensors based on IONPs and their applications, IONPs in imaging and drug delivery. Iron Oxide Nanoparticles can be synthesized with co-precipitation, thermal decomposition, microwave techniques to achieve optimum results and then coated with polymers and further loaded with related drug, biomolecule or a dye to obtain an optical result. These IONPs are then doped with other nanoparticles to form composites with nanostructures as Graphene or biomolecules as Chitosan are further usually dispersed over a glass or a silicon substrate to fabricate a biosensor. IONPs tend to achieve super paramagnetic property and therefore known as SPIONs that increases the application of these nanoparticles in all spectrums of biomedical application.