Abstract
Metal assisted chemical etch has recently come to prominence as a versatile strategy for the realization of silicon nanostructures with tailored porosity. By exploiting metal assisted chemical etch, we recently developed porous silicon nanoneedles capable of interfacing with cells for delivery to and sensing of the intracellular milieu. Here we review our recently published studies on the fabrication of such nanostructures. Further we review their use as vectors for the localized delivery nucleic acids capable of inducing neovasculature formation in a mouse model. Finally we provide an overview of our findings on the use of porous silicon nanoneedles as intracellular sensors for detection of enzymatic activity with high resolution across excised human tissue samples.