Smart nanobiomaterials for gene delivery in localized cancer therapy: An overview from emerging materials and devices to clinical applications

Researchers in various fields continue to discover improved ways of local delivery of drugs to specific locations and try to increase the efficiency of these methods. Extensive research has been done on smart nano-biomaterials for drug delivery systems (DDS) in different dimensions. With the advancement of biomedical nanotechnology, conventional smart DDS with stimuli-responsive capability has been developed. Smart nano-biomaterials can respond to environmental changes caused by endogenous or exogenous elements: endogenous factors such as environmental pH, temperature gradient, enzymes, oxidation, and reduction potential. As well as exogenous factors, including light radiation, ultrasound, electric and magnetic fields. Currently, smart DDSs count as a major category in DDS and disease treatment. Currently, smart DDS are of great interest in drug delivery and treatment of diseases. With the improvements in gene and protein therapy, new methods have been presented to treat diseases without effective conventional treatment, especially cancer. Finally, the use of nanoparticles expanded due to the need for appropriate gene and protein delivery systems. This review discusses the advantages of protein and gene therapy, their challenges, and gene and protein delivery systems with nanoparticle-based delivery.