The development of nanotechnology has opened up new applications in the field of biomedicine. Chitosan and its derivatives can be used in a variety of ways, for example to enable targeted and sustained drug release. To give you an overview, we present a review that deals with the current research on the application of chitosan and its derivatives, especially carboxymthylchitosan (CMC), in biomedicine.

Hepatocellular carcinoma is a solid tumor that exhibits severe angiogenesis, cell cycle dysregulation, and evasion of apoptosis. Late diagnosis in a large proportion of patients is making the carcinomas inoperable, and various chemotherapeutic agents are used. Due to the numerous side effects of known chemotherapeutic agents, intensive research is performed on the use of natural products and their synthetic analogues. The authors of the presented study investigated the effect of carboxymethyl chitosan oligosaccharides on the growth of hepatocellular tumors in mice.

An emulsion which is stabilized by solid particles absorbing onto the interface between the two phases is called a pickering emulsion. The particles prevent coalescence of the droplets. The development of particulate emulsifiers is highly interesting with many advantages over conventional surfactant systems. Beneficial are the higher stability, better size control and lower toxicity. In this research area the application of chitosan for development of pickering emulsions is promising.