Tailoring multifunctional nanoparticles for encapsulation of bio-molecules.

Nanoparticles(NPs) that can simultaneously perform multiple tasks could beused for sensing, imaging, monitoring, delivering drug among other things. Combining organic and inorganic NPs has been used to synthesize such multifunctional NPs. In such multifunctional NPs, the inorganic NPs can be used for sensing or detecting etc, while polymeric NPs make them stable and help in active targeting or delivering drug. Inorganic NPs like gold NPs or iron NPs posses good sensing, detecting and imaging properties. On the other hand, stimuli responsive polymers such as Poly(N-Isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAm) and Acrylic Acid(AAc) respond to changes in temperature and pH respectively. Combining these two NPs will result in multifunctional NPs with the properties that are mentioned above.This work mainly focused on developing new techniques to synthesize polymeric NPs and multifunctional NPs. As part of the study, the physico-chemicalproperties of these NPs were also analysed. Polymeric NPs were synthesized using PNIPAm and AAc. These polymeric NPs were combined with Au NPs or FeNPs to synthesize multifunctional NPs. Different sizes, shapes and concentrationof inorganic NPs were used to study its effect on the multifunctional NP