Biomedical applications of magnetite nanoparticles

This chapter contains an overview of biomedical applications of magnetite nanoparticles. In these areas, the physical-chemical particle features determine their biological behavior/fate and their potential applications. For this reason, the first part of this contribution briefly summarizes the available methods for iron oxide nanoparticles preparation, with an emphasis on magnetite, and their stabilizing procedures with further surface modification, that allows the subsequent conjugation to biomolecules and to guarantee nanoparticle biocompatibility. Hence, the available protocols of conjugation to biomolecules are briefly discussed considering the coordination chemistry according to the nanoparticle surface modifiers. The biomedical applications of magnetite nanoparticles herein considered, as well as their application basic principles, include: drug delivery, chemotherapy, magnetofection, hyperthermia, scaffold-based tissue engineering, MRI contrast agents, organ/tissue imaging, theranostic platforms, in vitro bioseparation, bioanalysis, and immunoassays.