Design of red-emitting 1D zinc coordination polymer for targeted drug delivery to nucleus

•A semiconducting 1D Zn-QCDM coordination polymer exhibits a bandgap of 1.91 eV and red fluorescence.•The Zn-QCDM shows nucleolus-targeted drug delivery with the selectivity over 40%.•The targeting property is originated from the π-π stacking and Zn-O coordination of Zn-QCDM with unpaired bases on RNA.