Biomedical applications of multifunctional magnetoelectric nanoparticles

Advances in nanotechnology are impacting biomedicine with the potential to improve disease diagnosis, enhance targeted drug delivery, refine imaging of therapeutic responses, control cell and tissue responses, and guide resection. An emerging class of nanomaterials with unique properties for biomedical applications are magnetoelectric nanoparticles (MENPs). Because of their electro-magnetic coupling properties, MENPs can be manipulated in the body by applying magnetic field gradients to produce local electrical fields for various biomedical applications from controlled drug release to cellular stimulation. Conversely, because they display a quantum mechanically induced nonzero magnetoelectric (ME) effect, electrical fields can also be produced with localized magnetic fields to achieve different signals for bioimaging or biosensing. Here we review MENPs, their synthesis and characterization, as well as their applications in drug delivery, neural stimulation, bio-imaging, bio-sensing, diagnostics and theranostics.