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REVIEW

Quantum dots for bio-imaging technology: A systematic review

Arezoo Ashkani1 ,  Omid Ashkani2*
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1 Department of Basic Sciences, SR.C., Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
2 Department of Material Engineering, SR.C., Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
BMT, 46 https://doi.org/10.12336/bmt.25.00046
Submitted: 25 May 2025 | Revised: 23 September 2025 | Accepted: 10 October 2025 | Published: 12 November 2025
© 2025 by the Author(s). Licensee Biomaterials Translational, USA. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/deed.en)
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Abstract

Quantum dots (QDs) have a variety of applications, including use in solar cells, drug delivery, biomaterials, and the development of water resource protection technologies. Being the leading materials in the medical field, QDs are currently used in drug delivery, preparation of antibodies and vaccines, gene delivery, and bio-imaging. One of the areas of interest in recent years has been the investigation of their key properties in bio-imaging. Bio-imaging is of particular importance in identifying diseases and many types of cancer, which can increase the quality of treatment and improve patient outcomes. The results of this research showed that various materials, such as cadmium selenium QDs, zinc sulfide QDs, indium phosphide QDs, and graphene QDs, could be used in this field. Among the different materials, Graphene, carbon, zinc-based, cadmium-based, and gold QDs have been of interest. In general, promising results have been observed in bio-imaging of various cancer cells, glioma cells, and even cancer treatment, which could be an important development in medical sciences and bioengineering. The present study is organized to review the latest achievements in this field, and suggestions for future research are presented in each section. It is suggested that the development of graphene and carbon QDs should receive more attention from researchers due to their higher biocompatibility. Furthermore, simultaneous drug delivery with bio-imaging could be among the issues that will be discussed in future research. 

Keywords
Quantum dots
Bio-imaging
Cancer treatment
Medical sciences
Bioengineering
Funding
None.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no known conflicts of interest or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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