STTR Phase I: Multifunctional Nanoparticle Assemblies for Optical Diagnosis and Treatment of Disease

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。这个小型企业技术转移（STTR）一期项目将开发一种新型多功能纳米粒子组件，用于光学疾病的诊断和治疗。纳米粒子组件将使用一种新的等离子体增强双光子激活交联方法合成，该方法将以前所未有的选择性将纳米粒子附着在特定的纳米粒子位点上。通过有机发色团的结合，金属纳米颗粒的等离子共振将使二次谐波成像显微镜和双光子激发荧光显微镜的效率提高三到六个数量级，这将用于对体内疾病状态（如癌症肿瘤）的位置进行成像。增加的激光强度与等离子体热点的能量集中到小空间体积相结合，将通过大幅提高局部温度来实现疾病的超热治疗。这项研究的更广泛的影响包括加速光学技术的发展，用于诊断和治疗疾病，如癌症。虽然这种光学技术正在进行深入的研究和开发，以便在生物医学中实施，但本文提出的新型纳米颗粒组件提供的效率的数量级提高将使更快的实施成为可能。此外，合成纳米粒子组件的新方法将具有更广泛的科学和商业影响。这种组装方法只要求其中一个纳米颗粒是金属的。因此，这种新组装方法的发展将使多种功能的组合成为可能，包括磁性纳米颗粒、抗菌银纳米颗粒和荧光量子点。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project will develop a new class of multifunctional nanoparticle assemblies for optical disease diagnosis and treatment. The nanoparticle assemblies will be synthesized using a new plasmon-enhanced two-photon activated crosslinking approach that will attach nanoparticles with an unprecedented level of selectivity towards specific nanoparticle sites. Through incorporation of organic chromophores, the plasmonic resonances of the metallic nanoparticles will provide three to six orders of magnitude enhancement in the efficiency of second harmonic imaging microscopy and two-photon excitation fluorescence microscopy, which will be utilized for imaging the locations of disease states such as cancerous tumors within the body. Increased laser intensity combined with the energy concentration of the plasmonic hotspots into small spatial volumes will enable hyperthermal treatment of the disease through large increases in the local temperature. The broader impacts of this research include acceleration of the development of optical techniques for diagnosis and treatment of diseases such as cancer. While such optical techniques are under intense research and development for implementation in biomedicine, the orders of magnitude increases in efficiency provided by the new nanoparticle assemblies proposed here will enable more rapid implementation. Furthermore, the novel approach for synthesis of nanoparticle assemblies will have a much broader scientific and commercial impact. The assembly method only requires that one of the nanoparticles be metallic. The development of this new assembly approach will thus enable the combination of a wide range functionalities including magnetic nanoparticles, antimicrobial silver nanoparticles, and fluorescent quantum dots.