Nanotechnologies for traditional Chinese medicine research: quality control and therapeutic applications

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), as the treasure resource to treat diseases with long historical clinical practice and reliable therapeutic efficacy, attracts widespread attention all over the world. Due to their complex compositions, susceptible quality, and synergistic pharmacology, it is highly urgent to develop strategies to detect the active components, identify authenticity, discriminate toxins, and evaluate therapy of these medicines. The rapid development of nanotechnology has opened up promising avenues for TCM research. In this review, we categorize the recent advancement of nanotechnology-based TCM research, particularly including quality control and therapeutic applications; based on this, we further illustrate the opportunities, challenges, and future trends in the field of nanotechnology-based TCM research.