title: The advancing uses of nano-graphene in drug delivery.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Graphene has been received with great interest in various fields including biomedical applications. Due to its ultrahigh surface area and easy surface functionalization, single-layered graphene has been intensively explored for drug and gene delivery. Utilizing their intrinsic high near-infrared absorbance, graphene and its derivatives have been found to be excellent candidates for multimodal imaging guided combined cancer photothermal and chemo- and/or photodynamic therapies.
  
  
  METHODS
  This review summarizes recent studies on the biomedical applications of various graphene-based nanomaterials. The authors provide a comprehensive summary on using properly functionalized nano-graphene and its derivatives for drug and gene delivery, as well as combination therapy of cancer.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Regarding biomedical applications, the authors find that proper surface functionalization and controlled sizes of graphene-based nanomaterials are two crucial factors for efficient drug and gene delivery. Although a lot of work has demonstrated the successful delivery of anticancer drugs and genes using graphene-based nanomaterials as carriers, the correlations of their surface functionalization and size distribution and their therapeutic outcomes need more exploration. On the other hand, the long-term toxicological and metabolic behaviors of nano-graphene still merit significantly more effort before clinical use.
authors.affiliation: Medical College of Soochow University, School of Radiation Medicine and Protection & School for Radiological and Interdisciplinary Sciences (RAD-X), Collaborative Innovation Center of Radiation , Suzhou, Jiangsu 215123 , China kyang@suda.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Kai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Liangzhu
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.forename: Zhuang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems; D018014:Gene Transfer Techniques; D006108:Graphite / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D049329:Nanostructures; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000628:therapy
chemical_list: D006108:Graphite
keywords: combined therapy; drug and gene delivery; graphene based nanocomposites; nano-graphene