I-Corps: Tissue paint and contrast agent for photoacoustic imaging

I-Corps项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是为光声成像带来一种新型安全的造影剂平台，这将有利于多种生物医学成像应用。该技术将显著提高传统造影剂的成像深度，限制安全风险，提高光声成像质量和对比度，提高靶向特异性，以更高的精度对组织器官进行染色。这项新技术影响的应用包括但不限于临床前成像，以更好地评估深层组织中发生的生物机制，临床成像，以更准确和更快的癌症诊断，淋巴结染色和肿瘤边缘染色，以帮助外科医生更有效地切除肿瘤。此外，这种新型造影剂平台的可扩展性和多功能性将降低与生物医学成像相关的成本，并将促进许多资源有限的患者获得临床诊断成像。I-Corps项目的基础是开发一种新型的、易于合成的、可调节大小的、靶向造影剂平台，用于光声成像，可以潜在地解决临床前和临床市场未满足的成像需求。该平台由高度组织的生物相容性染料分子排列组成，在近红外范围内提供高光学吸收，有助于深层组织成像。该平台不需要组装任何纳米载体，这增加了其安全性，减少了组件的数量，以促进临床翻译。造影剂的大小可以在不改变组成或光学性质的情况下进行控制，使用可扩展和可重复的合成方法，这扩大了造影剂在生物医学成像中的应用。与传统临床使用的造影剂相比，它也具有显著的优势，传统临床使用的造影剂通常没有靶向性，因此特异性有限。该平台使用传统存储方法提供长期存储能力，而不会改变其光学和物理特性，这最终将有助于其可制造性和分销性。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to bring a novel and safe contrast agent platform for photoacoustic imaging that will be of benefit for multiple biomedical imaging applications. This technology would significantly increase the depth of imaging currently accessible with traditional contrast agent, limit the safety risk, enhance the quality and contrast of photoacoustic imaging and increase the targeting specificity to stain tissues and organs with higher precision. The applications impacted by this novel technology include but are not limited to preclinical imaging for better assessment of biological mechanisms happening in deep tissues, clinical imaging for more accurate and faster cancer diagnosis, lymph node staining, and tumor margin staining to help surgeons remove tumors more efficiently. In addition, the scalability and versatility of this novel contrast agent platform would reduce the cost associated with biomedical imaging and would facilitate access to clinical diagnostic imaging for many patients with limited resources.This I-Corps project is based on the development of a novel, easy to synthesize, size-tunable and targeted contrast agent platform for photoacoustic imaging that can potentially solve unmet imaging needs in preclinical and clinical markets. This platform is composed of a highly organized molecular arrangement of biocompatible dyes offering a high optical absorption in the near-infrared range aiding in deep-tissue imaging. This platform does not require any nanocarriers to be assembled, which increases its safety profile, reduces the number of components to facilitate clinical translation. The size of the contrast agent can be controlled without changing the composition or the optical properties using scalable and reproducible synthesis methods which broadens its use in biomedical imaging. It also offers significant advantages in comparison with traditional clinically used contrast agents that are usually not targeted and thus offer limited specificity. The platform offers long-term storage capability using conventional storage methods without any change in its optical and physical properties, which will eventually aid its manufacturability and distribution.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.