Nanotechnology and sialic acid biology

Nanotechnology is the science of matter at size in a scale of 1/1,000,000,000 of a meter. In the last century, considerable progress has been made in the field of nanotechnology and its finds application in major spheres of human life encompassing personal products, medicines, biosensors, disease diagnosis, food, chemicals, energy, agriculture, and industry with application in human health and environment. Nanotechnology application to glycobiology is a considerable new development. In the recent times, nanotechnology finds promising applications in the study and targeting of sialic acid encompassing (i) detection of sialic acids in minute quantities and (ii) enabling their targeting in diseases. We discuss in this chapter the recent advances in the application of nanotechnology to sialic acid biology as (i) imaging agents, (ii) spectroscopic tools for their detection, (iii) monitoring of cellular systems, and (iv) application in drug delivery.