ABSTRACT
Combinatorial nanoparticles (NP) or hybrid NPs are literally considered to be the combination of different constitute mixed together with the purpose of taking advantage of the effect of the synergetic properties of individual components for biological applications. This chapter discusses developments in multifunctional probes and focuses on their biomedical applications. It deals with a description of the different kinds of combinatorial NPs, followed by an overview of the biomedical applications developed for targeted imaging, cell separation or therapy. The ability to combine nanosized domains of metallic, organic and magnetic materials into hybrid nanostructures with intriguing shapes and varied compositions provides a powerful way to engineer nanomaterials with multiple functionalities for biomedicine. Core/shell NPs are gradually attracting more and more attention, since these NPs have emerged at the frontier between materials chemistry and many other fields, such as electronics, biomedicine, pharmacy, optics and catalysis.
