Nanomedicine holds great potential for drug delivery to achieve more effective and safer cancer treatment. Recently, one research group in Japan developed a folate receptor-targeting nanocomplex which carries alcoholic extract of Withania somnifera leaves (i-Extract) that has selective cancer cell killing activity, suspends well in water and possesses enhanced selective anticancer activity in both in vitro and in vivo assays. Comparative analyses of folate receptor (FR)-positive and -negative cells revealed that FRi-ExNC caused a stronger decrease in Cyclin D/Cdk4 and anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2, as well as a higher increase in the growth arrest regulating protein p21WAF1 and pro-apoptotic protein PARP-1, in FR-enriched cancer cells. The results demonstrate that FRi-ExNC could be a natural source-based nanomedicine for targeted cancer therapy. NSP’s DSPE-PEG-Folate was used to construct the nanocomplex for folate receptor-targeting. Front. Oncol., 04 July 2019 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fonc.2019.00602.