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To date, various reports have shown that metallic gold bhasma at the nanoscale form was used as medicine as early as 2500 B.C. in India, China, and Egypt. Owing to their unique physicochemical, biological, and electronic properties, they have broad utilities in energy, environment, agriculture and more recently, the biomedical field. The biomedical domain has been used in drug delivery, imaging, diagnostics, therapeutics, and biosensing applications. In this review, we will discuss and highlight the increasing control over metal and metal oxide nanoparticle structures as smart nanomaterials utilized in the biomedical domain to advance the role of biosynthesized nanoparticles for improving human health through wide applications in the targeted drug delivery, controlled release drug delivery, wound dressing, tissue scaffolding, and medical implants. In addition, we have discussed concerns related to the role of these types of nanoparticles as an anti-viral agent by majorly highlighting the ways to combat the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic, along with their prospects.

Nanotechnology is the branch of science which deals with particles ranging between 1–100 nm. These particles are called nanoparticles, and they exhibit unique electronic, optical, magnetic, and mechanical properties, which make them different from the bulk material. These properties of nanomaterials help them to find a variety of applications in the biomedical, agricultural, and environmental domains. Cerium oxide nanoparticles have gained a lot of attention as a potential future candidate for ending various kinds of problems by exhibiting redox activity, free radical scavenging property, biofilm inhibition, etc. Synthesis of these nanoparticles can be performed very easily by utilizing chemical or biological methods. But in this review, the focus is laid on the biosynthesis of these nanoparticles; as the biosynthesis method makes the cerium oxide nanoparticle less toxic and compatible with the living tissues, which helps them to find their path as an anticancer, anti-inflammatory and antibacterial agents. The pre-existing reviews have only focused on details relating to properties/applications/synthesis; whereas this review draws attention towards all the aspects in single review covering all the details in depth such as biosynthesis methods and its effect on the living tissues, along with properties, biomedical applications (diagnostic and therapeutic) and future outlook of the cerium oxide nanoparticle.

Nanomaterials are materials with dimensions between 1 and 100 nm, extremely small in size, with at least one dimension ≤ 100 nm. These nanomaterials exhibit enormous physicobiochemical properties such as thermal, electrical, optical, magnetic, mechanical, and biological properties owing to which these nanomaterials find a variety of applications in various fields. Moreover, the nanomaterials’ synthesis encompasses two main approaches: the top-down approach and the bottom-up approach. Thus, these nanomaterials’ synthesis can be performed very easily using different chemical, physical, and biological (plant, fungi, bacteria, etc.) methods. Nanomaterials can be classified as 0D, 1D, 2D, and 3D nanostructures where 0D are clusters and spheres, 1D are wires, nanofibers, and rods, 2D are plates, films, and networks, and 3D are known as nanomaterials. For characterization of these nanostructures, sophisticated techniques such as spectroscopy and microscopy are required. Hence, this chapter focuses on these nanomaterials’ classification, properties, synthesis, and characterization.

Nanobiotechnology is currently operating in various science domains and is based on nanomaterials and devices at the nanometer scale (1–100 nm). Nanomaterials have been a common material for developing new cutting-edge applications in communications, biosensing, energy storage, data storage, optics, transmission, environmental protection, cosmetics, biology, and medicine due to their extraordinary optical, mechanical, electrical, and magnetic properties. Moreover, owing to its unique properties and utility, which arises from various attributes, namely the size of nanoparticles and biomolecules such as proteins and nucleic acids with a wide range of metals and semiconductor materials (fluorescence and magnetic behavior). Thus, there is an urgent need for knowledge pertaining to the relationship between size, shape, and structure of nanomaterials and how one can tune their capability for electronic and chemical interactions with biological molecules and their implications in biosensors. Nanomaterials are gaining important applications in the fields of biomedical, agricultural, and environmental domains. However, designing new applicable and affordable scaling-up manufacturing techniques will create a new field of study and meet various human requirements. Hence, this chapter briefly introduces nanomaterials and their prospects and broad-spectrum applications, majorly in biomedical, environmental, and agricultural domains.

Nanotechnology has evolved very fast in recent years, and biosensors based on nanomaterials (nanobiosensors) are finding a variety of applications in the environmental, clinical, and agricultural domains just due to the versatile properties of the nanomaterials used for designing nanobiosensors. The major threat to environment is the release of heavy metal ions, pesticides, chemical toxins, etc., into water bodies, food, and the atmosphere. These sources are directly in contact with the living world and these environmental pollutants pose severe global threats to health. Using nanoscale-structured material for improving biosensing technology has brought in a novel and cost-effective technology for environmental analysis and monitoring. Due to the complexity of these pollutants, traditional biosensor methods face some limitations, which are overcome by using nanobiosensors; these types of sensors are very selective and sensitive. In this book chapter, different types of nanobiosensors based on quantum dot, carbon, dendrimers, liposomal, metal and metal oxides, and polymeric are elaborated in detail for their application in environmental analysis and monitoring.

Nanotechnology (NT) is an interdisciplinary scientific approach at the nanoscale, which has revolutionized animal production and health using modern tools of molecular genetics, genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and molecular diagnostics. Nanomicrofluidics, nanomaterials, and nanobiosensors have immense potential to solve severe problems pertaining to animal production like reproduction, breeding, disease prevention, and treatment. However, nanobiotechnology (NBT) is the branch of NT, which has created functional nanostructured tools and techniques to generate new avenues in the field of molecular biology, genomics, biotechnology, veterinary, and animal sciences. Diagnosis and targeted drug delivery using nanodevices based on nanomaterials such as metal and metal oxides nanoparticles (NPs), quantum dots (QDs) NPs, carbon-based NPs, magnetic NPs, liposomal NPs, polymeric NPs, and dendrimer NPs are beneficial for animal production and health. Thus, these nanomaterials for animal production and health have shown a significant role by enhancing the shelf life of animal products, monitoring food-borne animal diseases, and also help prevent toxic chemicals. Nanoparticles may be used as an animal growth promoter, antimicrobials, and nutrient delivery. Hence, animal production and health are the major backbone of the national economy for any country; animal production demand in the livestock industry is elevated due to which the use of antibiotics is increasing to enhance yield, and longer use of antibiotics is causing microbial antibiotic resistance, which poses a severe problem not only in animal's production but also on their health.

This featured article is based on the author's experience and personal overview of the synthesis, characterization, high performances and ultra-responsive utilization of core@shell nanomaterials (CSNs) in the biosensing field. Over the last few years, biosensor-related research using CSNs has progressed significantly, but, recently, CSNs with specific shape and size-tunable dependent physical and chemical properties have been found to be utilized for fabrication of chemosensors and biosensors with substantial attention. Following that, nano and microsensors made from stable, susceptible CSNs are used in diagnostics, enzymatic glucose determination, electrochemical DNA biosensors to detect pathogenic bacteria, and integrated wearable healthcare electronics as sensors. Nowadays, the utilization of plasmonic CSNs as probes for the colorimetric detection of various analytes and antibody conjugated CSNs for naked-eye immunosensing have also received considerable importance. Hence, this featured article compiles the up-to-date data of the state-of-the-art development on CSNs based biosensors and discusses their future aspects and challenges.