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Recent progress in biomedical technology, the clinical bioimaging, has a greater impact on the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease, especially by early intervention and precise therapy. Varieties of organic and inorganic materials either in the form of small molecules or nano‐sized materials have been engineered as a contrast agent (CA) to enhance image resolution among different tissues for the detection of abnormalities such as cancer and vascular occlusion. Among different innovative imaging agents, contrast agents coupled with biologically derived endogenous platform shows the promising application in the biomedical field, including drug delivery and bioimaging. Strategy using biocomponents such as cells or products of cells as a delivery system predominantly reduces the toxic behavior of its cargo, as these systems reduce non‐specific distribution by navigating its cargo toward the targeted location. The hypothesis is that depending on the original biological role of the naïve cell, the contrast agents carried by such a system can provide corresponding natural designated behavior. Therefore, by combining properties of conventional synthetic molecules and nanomaterials with endogenous cell body, new solutions in the field of bioimaging to overcome biological barriers have been offered as innovative bioengineering. In this review, we will discuss the engineering of cell and cell‐derived components as a delivery system for various contrast agents to achieve clinically relevant contrast for diagnosis and study underlining mechanism of disease progression. This article is categorized under:Nanotechnology Approaches to Biology > Cells at the NanoscaleDiagnostic Tools > In Vivo Nanodiagnostics and ImagingTherapeutic Approaches and Drug Discovery > Nanomedicine for Oncologic Disease [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The rationale for the design of drug delivery nanoparticles is traditionally based on co-solvent self-assembly following bottom-up approaches or in combination with top-down approaches leading to tailored physiochemical properties to regulate biological responses. However, the optimal design and control of material properties to achieve specific biological responses remain the central challenge in drug delivery research. Considering this goal, we herein designed discoidal polymeric particles (DPPs) whose surfaces are re-engineered with isolated red blood cell (RBC) membranes to tailor their pharmacokinetics. The RBC membrane-coated DPPs (RBC-DPPs) were found to be biocompatible in cell-based in vitro experiments and exhibited extended blood circulation half-life. They also demonstrated unique kinetics at later time points in a mouse model compared to that of bare DPPs. Our results suggested that the incorporation of biomimicry would enable the biomimetic particles to cooperate with systems in the body such as cells and biomolecules to achieve specific biomedical goals. Graphical Abstract In this research, we designed discoidal polymeric particles (DPPs) whose surfaces are re-engineered with isolated red blood cell (RBC) membranes to tailor their pharmacokinetics. Our results suggested that the incorporation of biomimicry would enable the biomimetic particles to cooperate with systems in the body such as cells and biomolecules to achieve specific biomedical goals. Unlabelled Image [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Therapeutic efficacy of a systemic drug delivery largely depends on the targeting design of the delivery system, which tackles with circulatory traffic and prevents the nonspecific distribution of the drug in the wide range of vital organs. A drawing attention has been given to a biomimetic cloaking of the synthetic drug delivery nanoparticle using mammalian cell-ghosts, which has shown the installment of the biological complexity of the original cells thereby acting as naïve cells, to precisely delivery drug to the intended target. Align towards this direction; we developed a membrane camouflage fusogenic liposomal delivery system “NKsome” for targeted tumor therapy using Natural Killer (NK) cell-ghost, which naturally undergoes immunosurveillance of diseased/stress cells. The engineered NKsome shows successful retention of NK cell membrane-associated targeting protein on its surface. With its excellent biocompatibility, NKsome shows a higher affinity towards cancer than normal cells as demonstrated by in vitro flow-passage assay, and exhibits enhanced tumor homing efficiency in-vivo with an extended plasma residence time of 18 h. Moreover, the therapeutic potential of doxorubicin-loaded NKsome shows promising antitumor activity in vivo against MCF-7 induced tumor model. Overall results illustrate the therapeutic advantages of NK cell biomimicry capable of communicating like immune cells for cooperative drug delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]