Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) show promising application in biomedicine and pharmaceutics owing to their extraordinarily high surface area, tunable pore size, and adjustable internal surface properties. However, MOFs are prepared from non-renewable or toxic materials, which limit their real-world applications. Cyclodextrins (CDs) are a typical natural and biodegradable cyclic oligosaccharide and are primarily used to enhance the aqueous solubility, safety, and bioavailability of drugs by virtue of its low toxicity and highly flexible structure, offering a peculiar ability to form CD/drug inclusions. A sophisticated strategy where CD is deployed as a ligand to form an assembly of cyclodextrin-based MOFs (CD-MOFs) may overcome real-world application drawbacks of MOFs. CD-MOFs incorporate the porous features of MOFs and the encapsulation capability of CD for drug molecules, leading to outstanding properties when compared with traditional hybrid materials. This review focuses on the inclusion technology and drug delivery properties associated with CD-MOFs. In addition, synthetic strategies and currently developed uses of CD-MOFs are highlighted as well. Also, perspectives and future challenges in this rapidly developing research area are discussed.

The abuse of antibiotics has caused global problems including critical environmental ecology impacts. Herein, four new metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) – {[Cd(HL)(bic)(H₂O)]·2H₂O}(1), {[Cd₃(L)₂(bbi)₂(H₂O)₂]·2H₂O}(2), [Cd₃(L)₂(bib)₂(H₂O)₂] (3) and [Cd₃(L)₂(idy)₂] (4), where bic = 3,6-bis(imidazol-1-yl)-9H-carbazole, bbi = 1,1′-(1,4-butanediyl)bis(imidazole), bib =1,4-bis(1-imidazoly)benzene and idy = 2-imidazol-1-ylpyridine – have been synthesized and fully characterized. 1 is a 1D chain with a large loop, stacked parallel to each other in 2D supramolecular layers by hydrogen-bonded and packing interactions. 2 and 3 are isostructural and show a 3D (3,8)-connected tfz-type network with (4³)₂(4⁶·6¹⁸·8⁴) topology. 4 has a 2D grid framework. The oxygen atom of the ether-bridging group acts as a Lewis base site, which improves the connection strength and allows the detection of 11 types of antibiotics through the fluorescence quenching effect. Among them, 2 exhibits sensitive and selective detection for nitrofural (NZF) (K_SV = 8.26 × 10³ M⁻¹ and LOD = 1.83 ppm). Moreover, the highly selective probe behavior towards NZF ions could be maintained even if there are other interfering antibiotics.

We synthesize a new carrier of ALA@UIO-66-NH-FAM/MTA to achieve efficient synergistic therapy, taking advantage of the targeting component of MTA and high drug-loading capacity of hybrid scaffolds of MOF.

In this review article, we discuss the diverse stimuli achieved upon outside activation from single pH-stimulus-responsive or/and multiple pH-stimuli-responsive viewpoints in the body.