Biological membrane derived nanomedicines for cancer therapy

The development of nanomedicine systems for applications in cancer therapies has been widely explored in the last decade. With inherent biocompatibility, nanomedicine devices derived from biological membranes have shown many unique advantages compared with traditional artificial nanomaterials for biomedical applications. Herein, we present a comprehensive review of the recent development of cell membrane derived nanomedicines in cancer treatment. We firstly outline the advantages of biological membranes in nanomedicine design derived from their intrinsic characteristics, and then discuss the applications of biological membrane derived nanomedicines. For the first major category of membrane-derived nanomedicine, synthetic nanoparticles are usually camouflaged with cell membranes to acquire additional functionalities. The other type of membrane-based nanomedicine is directly using the engineered cell membrane-derived vesicles or nanovesicles secreted by cells for tumor treatment. At last, we discuss the challenges of membrane-derived nanomedicines towards future clinical applications, following with perspectives on possible solutions to the current problems.