Enhanced molybdenum cluster based materials for biomedical optical oxygen sensing.

生物组织中的氧浓度是一种独特的标记物，可用于确定或监测患者的病理状况，如癌症或炎症。与医疗实践中广泛使用的脉冲血氧仪不同，基于氧对发光的猝灭的氧传感器是一种可以快速指示局部氧浓度的技术，其分辨率可精确到微米级，这取决于所使用的光纤基板的大小。这项技术可以提供危重患者器官或组织小区域内的氧气浓度的即时信息(例如，在手术期间或在肺部、胃肠道、泌尿系统等器官的内窥镜检查期间)，这些信息可用于找出疾病病灶的准确位置或在治疗期间监测愈合过程。光学氧气传感器在普通用途(即在非生物条件下)非常常见，而这项技术目前仅在英国和世界范围内开发用于生物医学用途。尤其需要高度敏感(允许微型化)和生物兼容的材料，以便在生物条件传感器的方向上取得重大进展。因此，该项目的总体科学目标是开发生物相容和坚固的材料，用于生物介质中的氧气传感。最近，PI已经开发了一系列金属簇合物，它们在基于发光的氧传感应用中显示出很高的潜力。具体地说，概念验证研究表明，即使没有优化，基于这些络合物的材料对氧气传感的敏感性也可以与最先进的材料相媲美。此外，这些化合物是基于廉价的起始材料，不显示任何显著的毒性，并且具有高度的光稳定性。因此，与目前研究界正在考虑的任何其他材料(例如贵金属络合物、量子点、有机染料)相比，这些部分是用于生物医用氧气传感的更先进的发光体。为了促进生物医学氧气传感领域的最新发展，本项目(I)将利用这些最近开发的金属簇合物作为前体来生成具有高氧气传感能力的生物相容材料库，(Ii)将评估这些新材料在医用氧气传感方面的潜力。

Oxygen concentration in biological tissue is a unique marker that can be used to establish or monitor pathological conditions of patients such as cancer or inflammation. Unlike pulse oximetry widely used in medical practice, oxygen sensors based on the quenching of luminescence by oxygen is a technique that can provide rapid indication of the local oxygen concentration with a resolution down to microscale region which is determined by the size of the optical fibre substrate used. This technique can provide immediate information on the concentration of oxygen within the small area of an organ or a tissue of critically ill patients (e.g. during an operation or during endoscopic examination of such organs as lungs, gastrointestinal tract, urinary system etc), which can be used to find out the exact location of a disease focus or else to monitor the healing process during treatment. Optical oxygen sensors are quite common for general use (i.e. in non-biological conditions), while this technology is currently only being developed within UK and worldwide for biomedical use . There is a particular need for highly sensitive (to allow for miniaturisation) and biocompatible materials to make significant progress in the direction of sensors for biological conditions. The overall scientific goal of this project is thus to develop biocompatible and robust materials for use in oxygen sensing within biological media. Recently the PI has developed a range of metal cluster complexes that demonstrate high potential for luminescence-based oxygen sensing applications. Specifically, the proof-of-concept studies demonstrate that, even without optimisation, materials based on these complexes have sensitivity to oxygen sensing comparable to the state-of -the art materials. Moreover, this compounds are based on cheap starting materials that do not show any significant toxicity and are highly photo-stable. As such, these moieties are far more advanced luminophores for biomedical oxygen sensing than any other materials that are currently under consideration in the research community (e.g. precious metal complexes, quantum dots, organic dyes). To advance the state of the art in the area of biomedical oxygen sensing, this project (i) will use these recently developed metal cluster complexes as precursors to generate a library of biocompatible materials with high oxygen sensing capacity and (ii) will evaluate the potential of these new materials in medical oxygen sensing.