Nanotechnology has opened up a range of opportunities in medicine, including earlier diagnosis of disease, targeted and controlled delivery of drugs, and the potential for combined diagnosis and therapy, or theranostics1.Nanoparticles are similar in size to key functional units in cells, such as the lipoprotein complexes (which range from 8-lOnm to about 90nm) used to transport cholesterol and other essential nutrients into cells. Nanomedicine aims to take advantage of this similarity to deliver molecules to specific cells or subcellular organelles.Nanoparticles have enormous surface area relative to their volume and so bind readily with proteins and other biomolecules. Indeed, the binding of proteins and other biomolecules to nanoparticle surfaces is key to their ability to engage with the recognition sites on cellular receptors2.
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