Yadollah Omidi
1,2* 
1 Ovarian Cancer Research Center, School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA
2 Research Center for Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran
Abstract
Clinical applications of advanced
nanomedicines such as PEGylated liposomal doxorubicin and
paclitaxel-albumin bioconjugates have significantly improved the cancer
treatment strategies. However, these pharmaceuticals lack early
detection and single cell tracking capabilities. Thus, engineering of
smart multifunctional theranostics appear to be our next stepfor
simultaneous diagnosis and therapy of cancer. Clinical translation of
multifunctional theranostics appears to be dependent upon specificity of
cancer biomarkers, biocompatibility of components used for formulation,
and advancement of bioconjugation techniques. While many cancer
biomarker candidates often fail to be used for clinical
diagnosis/therapy because of their nonspecific functional expression in
normal tissues, biocompatibility of materials used for
bioconjugationalso needs to be approved. All these issues need to be
fully addressed prior to the translation of smart multifunctional cancer
theranostics.