Novel therapeutic interventions in cancer treatment using protein and peptide-based targeted smart systems.

Cancer, being the most prevalent and resistant disease afflicting any gender, age or social status, is the ultimate challenge for the scientific community. The new generation therapeutics for cancer management has shifted the approach to personalized/precision medicine, making use of patient- and tumor-specific markers for specifying the targeted therapies for each patient. Peptides targeting these cancer-specific signatures hold enormous potential for cancer therapy and diagnosis. The rapid advancements in the combinatorial peptide libraries served as an impetus to the development of multifunctional peptide-based materials for targeted cancer therapy. The present review outlines benefits and shortcomings of peptides as cancer therapeutics and the potential of peptide modified nanomedicines for targeted delivery of anticancer agents.