Nabil M Abdel-Hamid, Mohamed A Bastawy, Mohamed Nagy
This review highlights the unique properties of gold nanoparticles (Au NPs), their historical and recent medicinal uses, their  journey in the body, how they pass the biological barriers and pores, ultimately, reach a selective accumulation in cancer cells. To verify the aims of the journey, Au NPs are used in conjugated preparations either with proteins, carbohydrates, lipids or nucleic acids. Au NPs exploit biological pathways to achieve payload delivery to cellular and intracellular targets. Several examples of their forms  and the use of targeted nanoparticles in the treatment of many cancers are discussed.
