Polyphenols are naturally occurring organic materials that can be leveraged to develop extremely efficient drug agents for prevention in cerebral stroke related injuries and for chemotherapeutic purposes. Ongoing research on clinically important polyphenolic materials such as resveratrol and flavanols has indicated an immense potential for new drug design for treatment and prevention of cerebral ischemic stroke and other novel chemotherapeutic applications. In this short review, we have highlighted recent developments in this area to facilitate further research on this important class of organic materials for new biomedical applications that include nanoparticles based drug delivery systems.