Introduction to targeted biomedical applications of nanomaterials

Abstract

This new collection in Journal of Materials Chemistry B, Nanoscale, Materials Advances and Nanoscale Advances will focus on the design of multifunctional hybrid nanomaterials for different applications and on interfacing nanomaterials with biological systems for translational studies.

Dhiraj Bhatia

Dhiraj Bhatia obtained his PhD from NCBS-TIFR in Bangalore, India, in DNA nanotechnology. Post PhD he went to the Curie Institute in Paris to join the team of Ludger Johannes initially as a Curie fellow and later as an HFSP long-term fellow where he learnt cellular and biological applications of DNA nanodevices. In 2018, he moved to India to start his own laboratory at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar where he is an Associate Professor and was Ramanujan fellow till 2023. His lab focuses on translational aspects of DNA nanotechnology to develop tools to program biological systems for biomedical applications. He is currently a member of INYAS-INSA and also scientific advisor for the startup company Q-Nano-Sol Biotech.

Mukesh Dhanka

Dr Mukesh Dhanka is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, India. He earned his PhD degree in the area of Biomedical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India. His research group (Biomaterials and Drug Delivery Lab) at IIT Gandhinagar focuses on the development of novel biomaterials and drug delivery platform technologies to address significant clinical problems, including joint disorders, cancer, chronic wounds, drug-resistant bacterial infections, bone degeneration among others. While working on highly collaborative and interdisciplinary projects he has published more than 16 research articles, 3 book chapters, and 6 review articles in the area. In addition, three Indian patents have been granted and more than four patent applications are under review. We aim to develop quickly translatable and affordable biomedical platform technologies that have a societal impact.

Anjali Awasthi

Dr Anjali Awasthi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Zoology, University of Rajasthan, Jaipur. She completed her PhD (Biotechnology) at the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, India. Her area of research is Molecular Biology and Nanobiotechnology. She is working on toxicity assessment for different nanomaterials in different in vivo and in vitro models, as well as in biosensor development and biofouling studies of nanomaterials. She is also a nominated member of CCSEA, Ministry of Environment Forest & Climate Change Govt. of India. She is the recipient of the Young Scientist Award by the DST-New Delhi.

Kamlendra Awasthi

Dr Kamlendra Awasthi received his PhD degree in Physics from the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, India. Currently, he is Head and Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at Malaviya National Institute of Technology Jaipur, India. His main area of research is soft materials. He is the recipient of reputed fellowships: Young Scientist Award (2008), DST, Government of India; Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship (2009) from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany; INSPIRE Faculty Award (2012) from the DST, Government of India; Early Career Research Award (2017) from SERB-New Delhi, India; and Brain Pool Fellowship (2023), National Research Foundation of Korea.

Kaushik Chatterjee

Prof. Kaushik Chatterjee obtained a PhD in Bioengineering from the Pennsylvania State University. He pursued his postdoctoral fellowship jointly at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), supported by a Research Associateship from the US National Research Council. He joined the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore in 2011 as an Assistant Professor. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Materials Engineering and the Centre for BioSystems Science and Engineering. His research interests lie in developing and processing materials for biomedical applications. Specifically, his group focuses on scaffolds for tissue engineering, engineering organotypic tissue models, metallic biomaterials for medical implants, additive manufacturing, 3D printing, and bioprinting.

Nano-biomaterials, i.e., nanomaterials derived or inspired from biological molecules, have gained substantial influence in recent times due to their fine tunability, scale-up potential, and excellent interface and adaptation with biological systems. Multiple different approaches involving physical and computational modeling, chemical structure synthesis and characterization and biological modifications have been used to develop next generation bionano devices that can interface with biological systems in a very focused manner. Some of the recent devices have already made their way to clinical trials and many others are in different stages of the pipeline for translational applications. This new collection in Nanoscale, Journal of Materials Chemistry B, Nanoscale Advances and Materials Advances focuses on the design of multifunctional hybrid nanomaterials for different applications and on interfacing nanomaterials with biological systems for translational studies. The scope of this collection loosely aligns with the 2023 International Conference on Nanomaterials in Biology (ICNB 2023), held at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar along with the Soft Materials Research Society in November 2023. This conference witnessed the participation of scientists at all levels from various countries and was one of the biggest and most influential conferences in India. Supported by the Royal Society of Chemistry, the areas of research in the conference covered wide areas under the umbrella of ‘bioapplications of nanomaterials’.

Some of the areas covered included: 3D bioprinting, big data in nanosciences, bioinspired and biomimetic materials, biological nanodevices and sensors, engineered nanomaterials, nanomaterials and environmental effects, nanomaterials for bioenergy applications, nanomaterials for sustainable agriculture and food science, nanomaterials in biological uptake and nanotoxicology, nanomaterials in gene and drug delivery, nanomaterials in tissue engineering and medicine, polymer supramolecular chemistry and applications, and scaffold design and fabrication. This collection brings together some of the latest research from participants of the conference and other researchers across the world who are working in the areas mentioned above.

The articles and reviews in this issue are broadly classified into nanomaterials with focussed applications in biosensing, programming, therapeutics and associated biomedical applications.

Biosensing using new biomaterials has been an emerging area of interest in quick and personalized diagnosis and theranostic applications. This collection covers some of the important recent topics in the areas of targeted biosensing using nanomaterials. For example, Memon et al. present a nice perspective on using nanomaterials for detection of airborne pathogens (https://doi.org/10.1039/D4NR01175A); while Sivaselvam et al. cover the use of nanoparticles and quantum dots for specific biosensing of analytes and metabolites from biological samples (https://doi.org/10.1039/D4TB01006J).

A dedicated section of articles focuses on various aspects of DNA nanotechnology to develop scaffolds for biological programming and delivery. For example, Singh et al. present an overview of DNA functionalized biomaterials for cellular and tissue engineering applications (https://doi.org/10.1039/D4TB00287C). A section of articles focus on developing new materials which could have emergent properties for interfacing with biological systems. These are also termed as biological inspired or biological scaffolds. For example, Sreena et al. present a fresh perspective on glass-modified scaffolds for interfacing with biological systems (https://doi.org/10.1039/D4TB01525H). A particular focus has been on new materials like graphene, hyaluronic acid, titanium and their derivatives with applications for cellular and biological interface. A Laha et al. present the new scaffolds, from conventional methods to precision medicine for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (https://doi.org/10.1039/D4NR02182G); while Kapil et al. focus on graphene oxide modified scaffolds for detecting necrotic factors in cancer cells (https://doi.org/10.1039/D4TB01216J).

More importantly, there are articles which deal directly with disease diagnosis and delivery for direct therapeutic applications. For example, Tripathi et al. discuss surface engineered orthopedic implants for clinical applications (https://doi.org/10.1039/D4TB01563K); while Dhanabalan et al. discuss the effective use of nanoparticles for the treatment of osteoarthritis (https://doi.org/10.1039/D4TB01342E). Lawaniya et al. reported efficient detection of p-nitrophenol via a polypyrrole flower-decorated nickel foam-based electrochemical sensor to study the toxic effects on the human body (https://doi.org/10.1039/D4NR01580K).

Multiple exciting research articles related to the targeted biomedical applications of nanomaterials have been included in this themed issue and we are delighted to collate and share these with you. We sincerely hope that this themed issue will be well received by the community and will act as a catalyst for more related research developments in the near future.

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