A novel drug delivery system (DDS) was prepared by graft polymerization of chitosan coated magnetic nanoparticles (CS-MNP) with acrylic acid and grafted with ethylenediamine derivative of beta-cyclodextrin (beta-CD) for the sustained and controlled release of anticancer drug, curcumin (CUR). The DDS was characterized by means of SEM, TEM, DLS, XRD, and VSM. The information obtained from these characterization techniques revealed the successful formation of the drug carrier. Effect of pH on the encapsulation of CUR was tested using the DDS and found that optimum pH was at 5.0 due to hydrogen bonding and van der Waal's interactions. The drug loading efficiency (DLE) and drug encapsulation efficiency (DEE) of the DDS were tested. The swelling capacity of the final DDS and the intermediate compound, (CS-MNP)-g-poly (AA) were tested with respect to time and pH. The drug release studies were performed at pH 7.4 and 1.2 and found that maximum release occurs at pH 7.4 which is due to swelling of the material and diffusion of the drug from the material. The drug release data best fitted with Kosmeyer-Peppas model with n = 0.65 (after 24 h) and n = 0.84 (after 48 h) with correlation coefficient 0.99. The cytotoxicity studies carried out using DDS and the intermediate compound, (CS-MNP)-g-poly(AA) on 3T3-L1 cells and DDS, CUR and CUR-loaded-DDS on MCF-7 cells reveal the advantage of the DDS over (CS-MNP)-g-poly(AA). (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.