Photonanomedicines (PNMs) are photochemically-activated nanoscale drug delivery systems that play a niche role in photodynamic therapy (PDT)-based anticancer modalities. PNMs serve as versatile platforms for multi-agent delivery, spatiotemporally-controlled treatment induction and customization for tumor targeting. This work focuses on the systematic tuning of PNMs to achieve precision in tumor targeted photomodulation at three different scales: 1) stroma and interstitium, 2) proto-oncogenic cellular receptors, and 3) subcellular organelles (Figure 1). We show that photomodulation of tumors targeted at these three scales provides unique avenues to circumvent problematic barriers in drug delivery, treatment specificity, safety and tolerability, and treatment response.
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