Surface engineering of iron oxide nanoparticles for cancer therapy

Iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs) have attracted extensive applications in biomedical fields such as drug delivery, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for medical diagnosis and cancer therapeutics. Designing efficient IONPs for cancer treatment requires their surface modification with suitable biocompatible organic and inorganic molecules having multifunctional groups. This review focuses on recent developments in the area of surface engineering of IONPs and their potential applications in cancer therapy. The imaging and targeting potential of IONPs in conjugation with luminescent markers and receptor molecules are briefly discussed.