The biocompatibility of nanodiamonds and their application in drug delivery systems

Nanodiamonds (NDs), as a new member of the carbon nanoparticles family, have attracted more and more attention in biomedicine recently due to their excellent physical and chemical properties. This paper summarizes the main results from the in vitro and in vivo safety assessments of NDs and reports the application of NDs in the development of drug delivery systems. In view of the NDs' characteristics of easy formation of a porous cluster structure in solution, an adsorption model for a variety of functional molecules on the ND clusters is proposed, which provides new ideas for developing a novel smart drug with various features such as sustained-release, targeting, and fluorescence imaging.