This thesis documents the development of a multifunctional nanoparticle system to enhance the chemotherapeutic efficiency of anti-cancer drugs, and contributes to research that helps decrease the side-effects in cancer patients while simultaneously increasing their survival rates. The work begins with an introduction to nanomedicine and cancer therapy, and contains a literature review on magnetic, gold, and core-shell nanoparticles. It also covers synthesis techniques, properties, various surface modifications, and the importance of magnetic and gold nanoparticles. The author dedicates a chapter to characterization techniques, experimental setup, and cell cultivation techniques for in-vitro studies. Further chapters describe the background, characterizations, and applications of multifunctional magnetite coated gold core-shell nanoparticles, and the doping of cobalt to magnetite and manganese to magnetite nanoparticles. The important highlight of this research was the control of the size, shape, composition, and surface chemistry of nanoparticles.

Ravichandran Manisekaran received his degrees from Thiruvalluvar Univeersity, B.Sc in Biochemistry (2008) and M.Sc. in Medical Bionanotechnology from Chettinad University (2010). Recently, he received his PhD in the field of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (March 2017), from the Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute (CINVESTAV-IPN), Zacatenco, Mexico City. He will be joining as a research associate in the Nanobio-optics laboratory, Center for Applied Physics and Advanced Technology (CFATA), UNAM campus, Juriquilla. His current research interests are focused on the use of surface functionalized multifunctional nanoparticles for various biomedical applications such as targeted drug delivery, hyperthermia, contrast agents, thermal ablation, electrospinning and biosensing. He was awarded a CONACYT fellowship for carrying out his doctoral research in CINVESTAV-IPN from 2013-2017.

Introduction to Nanomedicine and Cancer Therapy.- Literature Survey on Magnetic, Gold and Core-Shell Nanoparticles.- Characterization Techniques, Cell Cultivation and Experimental Setup.- Designing a Nanocargo with Fe3O4@Au: A Tri-pronged Mechanism for MR Imaging, Synaphic Drug-delivery and Apoptosis Induction in Cancer Cells.- Multiple Iterative Seeding of Surface Plasmon Enhanced Cobalt-Iron Oxide Nanokernels for Cancer Theranostics.- Nano-flotillas MnFe2O4@Au Core-shell Nanoparticles: An Efficient MRI Contrast Agent, Magneto-hyperthermal and Drug-delivery Armada for Cancer.- Concluding Remarks and Future Prospects.