  Effective and controlled drug delivery systems with on-demand release
abilities and biocompatible properties receive enormous attention for
biomedical applications. Here, we describe a novel inorganic-organic hybrid
material with a strikingly high organic content of almost 50 wt%. The colloidal
periodic mesoporous organosilica (PMO) nanoparticles synthesized in this work
consist entirely of curcumin and ethane derivatives serving as constituents
that are crosslinked by siloxane bridges, without any added silica. These
mesoporous curcumin nanoparticles (MCNs) exhibit very high surface areas (over
1000 m2/g), narrow particle size distribution (around 200 nm) and a strikingly
high stability in simulated biological media. Additionally, the MCNs are used
as a cargo delivery system in live-cell experiments. A supported lipid bilayer
(SLB) efficiently seals the pores and releases Rhodamin B as model cargo in
HeLa cells. This novel nanocarrier concept provides a promising platform for
the development of controllable and highly biocompatible theranostic systems.
