ABSTRACT
The design of magnetic drug delivery nanocarriers for clinical applications is faced with various challenges, such as improving their drug payload, providing a higher colloidal stability in biological media, controlling the drug release in location and time and ensuring efficient cell or tissue targeting. Among the various chemical strategies developed to form drug-loaded magnetic nanoplatforms, magnetic silica nanocomposites have emerged as powerful nanosystems as they present key advantages over other types of nanocarriers, namely excellent biocompatibility, high versatility of surface functionality, a high level of drug payload and a scalable synthesis process. In this chapter, we report the different approaches developed in these last decennia to formulate drugs in magnetic silica nanocomposites, either via in situ sol–gel approaches allowing the formation of nonporous magnetic silica composites or by forming around a magnetic core a mesoporous silica shell that can be further impregnated with drugs. Furthermore, we highlight the importance in modifying the porous surface of magnetic core–mesoporous silica shell composites to ensure improved drug payloads and to tune the drug release in dosage, location and time. Polymer gatekeeping strategies are also particularly relevant to control the drug release upon local or external stimuli (pH, light) and especially mediated by alternating magnetic fields.
