ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the use of gold/silica hybrid nanoparticles (HNP) in medicine. It offers a brief history of these materials and explains the benefits they offer to both researchers and physicians. The chapter explains the particular advantages they offer when they are combined together—gold/silica hybrids. It discusses shape effects and explains how nanoparticle morphology can affect in vivo biodistribution and imaging/ delivery performance. The chapter describes the imaging and therapeutic features of gold/silica HNPs. NPs have been used as medical tools for many decades and have been made from a variety of materials and with a variety of designs. Silica and gold are some of the oldest materials known to man. Gold has been used for medicinal purposes for centuries even going back to the age of the ancient Chinese and Egyptians. Silica was historically known as quartz and is familiar to most people as sand and glass, which are the most common forms of silica.
