Nanoparticles (NPs) are promising platform for theranostics applications such as bioimaging, diagnostics, drug delivery, gene delivery, biosensors and photodynamic therapy.1 NPs can be designed and developed based on a variety of core materials (metal, semiconductor, silica and organic polymers). During the synthesis process, the size and morphology can be controlled via the adjustment of reaction conditions, such as time, temperature and catalysts. The surface functionalization is other important field for NPs development, various surface functional groups and targeting ligands can be introduced onto the core materials as an additional dimension in regulating NP interfacial properties for further biomedical applications. 

During last five years, we have designed and developed various advanced nanoparticles including polymers based nanoparticles,2-4 nanogels based nanoparticles,5 dentrimer-like silica nanoparticles,6 gold-silica hybrid nanoparticles, mesoporous silica nanoparticles and upconvertion nanoparticles. Those developed nanoparticles have been applied in drug delivery, gene delivery, early stage cancer detection and photodynamic therapy, the promising results evidence that they will have potential applications in the future medicine.