Presently, a plenty of concerns related to the environment are due to the overuse of petroleum-based chemicals and products; the synthesis of functional materials, starting from the natural sources, is the current trend in research. The interest for nanocellulose has recently increased in a huge range of fields, from the material science to the biomedical engineering. Nanocellulose gained this leading role because of several reasons: its natural abundance on this planet, the excellent mechanical and optical features, the good biocompatibility and the attractive capability of undergoing surface chemical modifications. Nanocellulose surface tuning techniques are adopted by the high reactivity of the hydroxyl groups available; the chemical modifications are mainly performed to introduce either charged or hydrophobic moieties that include amination, esterification, oxidation, silylation, carboxymethylation, epoxidation, sulfonation, thiol- and azido-functional capability. Despite the several already published papers regarding nanocellulose, the aim of this review involves discussing the surface chemical functional capability of nanocellulose and the subsequent applications in the main areas of nanocellulose research, such as drug delivery, biosensing/bioimaging, tissue regeneration and bioprinting, according to these modifications. The final goal of this review is to provide a novel and unusual overview on this topic that is continuously under expansion for its intrinsic sophisticated properties.

Targeted biocompatible nanoplatforms presenting multiple therapeutic functions have great potential for the treatment of cancer. Multifunctional nanocomposites formed by polymeric nanoparticles (PNPs) containing two cytotoxic agents - the drug alisertib and silver nanoparticles - were synthesized. These PNPs have been conjugated with a chlorotoxin, an active targeting 36-amino acid-long peptide that specifically binds to MMP-2, a receptor overexpressed by brain cancer cells. The individual and synergistic activity of these two cytotoxic agents against glioblastoma multiforme was tested both in vitro and in vivo. The induced cytotoxicity in a human glioblastoma-astrocytoma epithelial-like cell line (U87MG) was studied in vitro through a trypan blue exclusion test after 48 and 72 h of exposure. Subsequently, the PNPs' biodistribution in healthy animals and their effect on tumor reduction in tumor-bearing mice were studied using PNPs radiolabeled with (99m)Tc. Tumor reduction was achieved in vivo when using silver/alisertib@PNPs-chlorotoxin.

Zein a versatile biomaterial in the biomedical field. Easy to chemically functionalize with good emulsification properties, can be employed in drug delivery, fabrication of bioactive membranes and 3D scaffolds for tissue regeneration.