Calixarenes (CAs) are promising in biomedicine, biosensing, bioimaging and gene delivery systems
Calixarenes (CAs) are widely employed in biomedicine, e.g. biosensing and bioimaging, and contributed to in vivo and in vitro diagnostics. CAs were also employed to construct medication and gene delivery devices that helped create targeted treatments. CAs' ability to inhibit antibacterial, antiviral, anticancer, detoxifying, and amyloid fibrillation also aids in the development of macrocyclic therapies.Because of their ease of modification, CAs' rich (supramolecular) chemistry and their extensive chemical design space benefit such a wide range of medicinal applications. CAs' supramolecular chemistry permits studying biological functions. CAs have unique recognition properties as its cavity can identify and quench many dyes' fluorescence and photoactivity, making them excellent for turn-on fluorescence sensing, imaging, and activatable PDT. CA skeleton may also be utilized as a podand-like ligand to develop novel recognition systems. CAs are also skilled at assembling things. While these early investigations highlighted the biological potential of CA homologues for biosensing, bioimaging, drug/gene delivery, and therapy, there are currently few examples of clinical CA application. CAs' bench-to-bedside translation in biological applications is highly demanded. One CA is undertaking a phase I clinical study, a good indicator. However, from both scientific research and clinical trials, CAs still confront significant practical hurdles in biological applications. To make biosensing applications practicable in clinical settings, sensing systems need to be further developed into sensors or even in-vitro diagnostic kits. In vivo diagnosis and therapy More CA safety investigations including long-term toxicity effects, metabolic pathways, and immune reactions are needed. Some advanced modalities can be employed and explored to improve diagnostic and therapeutic performance, such as multimodal imaging, multiple targeting, and combination therapy. Moreover, despite the huge number of CA derivatives described, their physicochemical features and biological roles remain unclear. Exploring the novel functionalities of existing CAs is crucial, taking the combined efforts of diverse specialists from the domains of supramolecular chemistry, chemical biology, life sciences, pharmacy, and medicine. We believe that ancient molecules can still be employed for various new tricks. This can summarize the underlying link between molecular structures and biological activities to assist drive the creation of novel CA derivatives. We anticipate that CA-based biomedicine will deliver considerable benefits in the near future with ongoing research and development.