Silica-Based Nanostructures in Biomedicine

Over the past decade, silica nanostructures have been widely exploited to overcome the problems of conventional techniques for diagnosis and therapy. The combination of several different properties in one silica nanocomposite would enable the engineering of unique multifunctional nanocomposites, which can be easily detected using multiple imaging modalities. Thus, in this chapter, we will review the state-of-the-art multifunctional silica nanocomposites from a therapeutic and a diagnostic perspective as well as discuss the challenges in bringing these fields together. We will provide a future outlook on possible applications of multifunctional silica nanocomposites for biomedical applications.