Stimuli-responsive polymer-coated iron oxide nanoparticles as drug delivery platforms

Polymer-coated magnetic nanoparticle-based stimuli-responsive systems have been emerged as an important building block in functional materials that find applications in areas such as drug delivery, gene delivery, biomolecule detection, purification and separation, cellular imaging, hyperthermia, and magnetic resonance imaging agent. This chapter introduces various strategies utilized to fabricate polymer-coated magnetic nanoparticle systems. In particular, nanoparticles coated with stimuli-responsive polymeric systems are chosen as its responsiveness to certain stimuli often enables and enhances their use in targeted applications. Various examples from the literature are used to highlight thermo-responsive, magneto-responsive, light-responsive, pH-responsive, redox-responsive, and enzyme-responsive systems. This chapter provides an overview of the application of polymer-coated magnetic nanoparticles in various areas of biomedical applications, apart from synthetic approaches to fabricate such systems.