Drug Delivery: Multifunctional Upconversion Mesoporous Silica Nanostructures for Dual Modal Imaging and In Vivo Drug Delivery (Small 24/2013)

Incorporating the agents for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), optical imaging and therapy in one nanostructured matrix to construct a multifunctional nanomedical platform has attracted great attention for simultaneous diagnostic and therapeutic applications. A facile methodology is reported on page 4150 by J. Lin and co-workers to construct a multifunctional nanocarrier composed of individual luminescent/magnetic β-NaYF4:Yb3+, Er3+@β-NaGdF4:Yb3+ directly coated with mesoporous silica, followed by functionalization with poly(ethylene glycol), which can act as an effective platform for upconversion luminescence and magnetic resonance dual-modal imaging and in vivo anticancer drug delivery.