Stimuli-Responsive Nanomaterials for Biomedical Applications

ABSTRACT: Nature employs a variety of tactics to precisely time and execute the processes and mechanics of life, relying on sequential sense and response cascades to transduce signaling events over multiple length and time scales. Many of these tactics, such as the activation of a zymogen, involve the direct manipulation of a material by a stimulus. Similarly, effective therapeutics and diagnostics require the selective and efficient homing of material to specific tissues and biomolecular targets with appropriate temporal resolution. These systems must also avoid undesirable or toxic side effects and evade unwanted removal by endogenous clearing mechanisms. Nanoscale delivery vehicles have been developed to package materials with the hope of delivering them to select locations with rates of accumulation and clearance governed by a