Zeolites as theranostic MRI agents

Given zeolites numerous remarkable properties such as chemical stability, high surface areas, and well-organized porous systems, they have long been explored in a variety of important industrial applications, mainly those related to adsorption, catalysis and recently medicine. The zeolite polycrystalline nature imposes some limitations for the practical purposes, requiring for example its compression in form of pellets which usually leads to a drop of performance. One interesting alternative that has been subject of many studies is the incorporation of magnetic nanoparticles to zeolite crystals so that the formed composite can respond to an external magnetic field. This study focusses on the development of a magnetic zeolite nanocomposite as a suitable platform towards the design of a theranostic system. In addition to the well-known drug encapsulation properties of zeolite structures, in this work we explored their ability to act as T۲-MRI contrast enhancers in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) when magnetic nanoparticles are incorporated in their structure [۱-۴].

کلیدواژه ها:

Magnetic zeolite ، MRI ، Theranostic system ، Drug delivery ، T۲ agents