This symposium will broadly cover current and emerging supramolecular nanotheranostics. Theranostics, the combination of therapy and diagnostics, aims to develop molecular diagnostic tests and targeted therapeutics with the goals of individualizing treatment by targeting therapy to an individual's specific disease subtype and genetic profile. Nanotheranostics has been proposed to describe a new class of nanomedicines which integrate the simultaneous detection and treatment of a disease. Supramolecular biomaterials exhibit unique properties in theranostic applications compared with the conventional artificial biomaterials, attributing to the dynamic and responsive nature of non-covalent interactions. For example, the poor solubility and stability of chemotherapeutic drugs in physiological environment can be effectively solved by taking full advantage of supramolecular chemistry and nanotechnology. By the formation of host–guest complexes with macrocyclic hosts, the anticancer drugs can be easily formulated to prepare nanomedicines showing satisfactory anti-tumor efficacy and reduced normal organ toxicity.

The first part of this symposium will focus on supramolecular chemistry and stimuli-responsive supramolecular self-assembly. A key focus in this part will be on the development of new supramolecular materials, driving forces, and stimuli-responsiveness. The second part of this symposium will concentrate on rational design of supramolecular nanomaterials for theranostics. Symposium contributions should address basic science issues or explore new phenomena, or address obstacles confronting the clinical translation of the supramolecular biomaterials. This symposium will provide state of the art research on supramolecular chemistry and materials for theranostic applications, bringing together scientists and engineers from various disciplines. The purpose of this symposium is to provide guidance on the design of new supramolecular theranostic nanomaterials for personalized cancer diagnosis and therapy. In view of the significant research efforts being dedicated to this field, it could be expected that humanity will greatly benefit from supramolecular nanomedicines in the future.

biomaterial biomimetic (assembly) polymer polymerization