Nanozymes: New Advances in the Next Generation of Enzyme-Like Nanosystems

Dear Colleagues,

As an emerging novel type of nanomaterial with enzyme-like biocatalytic activity, nanozymes have shown great potential to replace natural enzymes in various fields, including biochemical detection, diagnosis, biosensing and disease therapy. Since the ground-breaking work of Gao and collaborators (2007) with magnetite nanoparticles demonstrating the peroxidase-like catalytic activity, numerous nanomaterials with artificially biomimicking enzyme activities have been developed focused on biomedical and pharmaceutical applications. These nanomaterials and nanosystems include metals, metal oxide compounds, metal–carbon and other nanostructures with biocatalytic properties. Nanozymes have attracted widespread interest compared to natural enzymes primarily due to their superior chemical and thermal stability, high catalytic efficiency, biosafety, relatively low cost, easy preparation and surface functionalization, and reusability, serving as versatile platforms for diverse applications. Moreover, they can offer stimuli-responsive behavior based on physical aspects, including magnetic fields, ultrasound, light and biochemical variations such as pH, ionic strength, surface charge, etc.

In this view, nanozymes and biocatalytic hybrid nanostructures offer the advantage of amalgamating the key features of nanomaterials and natural enzymes integrated into smartly designed nanosystems for a breadth of potential applications in nanotheranostics and correlated fields. They can offer innovative and promising alternatives to circumvent the current challenges for the diagnosis and therapy of acute, chronic and degenerative diseases, including cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and diabetes, as well as bacteria detection with antibacterial activity, among others.

Thus, we are pleased to invite researchers and professionals engaged in the fascinating realm of multidisciplinary knowledge of nanozymes and biocatalytic hybrid nanostructures to participate in the publishing of this Special Issue of the Journal of Nanotheranostics.

This Special Issue aims to gather contributions of studies and reviews with the most recent achievements relating to nanozymes and biocatalytic hybrid nanostructures, encompassing different areas of diagnosis and treatment technologies integrated into smartly designed and built nanosystems by highlighting their advantages in nanotheranostic-driven applications. Reports investigating nanozymes and “smart” synthetic biocatalytic nanostructures are expected, comprising rational design, synthesis processes (“bottom–up” and “top–down”), characterization techniques (e.g., analytical and bioimaging, cell-tracking by signaling pathways and processes), targeting activity, in vitro, in vivo and clinical applications, converging to combined disease diagnosis and therapy. In addition, up-to-date reviews offering a critical view of challenges, future research directions and perspectives on using nanozymes in this rapidly developing field of nanomedicine and nanotheranostics are welcome, which may help encourage future breakthroughs.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Herman Sander Mansur
Dr. Alexandra Ancelmo Piscitelli Mansur
Guest Editors

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• nanozymes
• nanoparticles
• nanocarriers
• nanotheranostics
• cancer nanomedicine
• nanoformulations for theranostics
• biocatalytic hybrid nanostructures
• nanohybrids for theranostics
• tumor targeting and therapy
• smart drug delivery systems
• biocatalytic and nanocatalytic tumor therapy
• enzyme-based antibacterials (enzybiotics)
• nanozymes for diagnostics, biosensing and therapy