Exploiting the Nanoparticle–Protein Corona for Advanced Biomedical Applications

Nanoparticles have significant potential to improve medicines, diagnostics and other healthcare technologies, but their behaviour in the body can differ substantially from how they are designed or perform in the laboratory.This is largely because proteins from biological fluids rapidly attach to nanoparticle surfaces, forming a protein corona that changes how the nanoparticles interact with cells, tissues and the immune system.Understanding and controlling this process is therefore important for translating nanomaterials into effective and reliable biomedical technologies.This Review highlights a shift in how the protein corona can be viewed: rather than being an unavoidable barrier to nanoparticle performance, it can potentially be used as a functional biological interface.We examine how nanoparticle properties can influence corona formation and how the resulting protein layer can be characterised, exploited and deliberately engineered for applications including targeted drug delivery, disease diagnosis, biosensing, molecular recognition and nanotoxicology.This approach could enable nanoparticles with improved therapeutic efficacy, more accurate diagnostics, and enhanced safety.Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core.06 Nov 2026 at 19:15:19, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use.Realising these benefits at scale will require greater standardisation of protein-corona analysis, reproducible manufacturing and characterisation of nanoparticles, and improved understanding of how coronas evolve across different biological environments and between individuals.Integration of advanced analytical methods, computational modelling and rational materials design will be important for translating laboratory findings into robust and clinically relevant technologies.By bringing together emerging approaches to understand and engineer the nanoparticle-protein interface, this Review highlights opportunities to develop more predictable, effective and biologically informed nanomaterials for future healthcare applications.