Nanoparticle Development, Production and Characterization (NP Core)

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PROJECT SUMMARY (See instructions): The Nanoparticle Development, Production and Characterization Core (NP Core) will provide well characterized nanoparticles for all four projects associated with the Dartmouth CCNE. During the start-up phase of the CCNE, we will acquire commercial dextran-coated superparamagnefic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIOs) from Aspens Systems, Inc., Mariborough, MA (see supporting letter). These will be used initially in all the projects to jumpstart them. Forthe purposes of quality control, the core will measure both the magnetic properties and heating behavior in an applied alternating magnetic field for all the SPIOs that we will use. The main purpose ofthe core is to provide biocompatibly-coated magnetic iron/iron oxide core/shell nanocomposite particles (mNPs) that have been developed at Dartmouth. These mNPs, which have superior heating characteristics to SPIOs, will be produced with a variety of sizes (8-100 nm) as requested by each of the projects. The mNPs will be made through our well-established microemulsion techniques and a biocompatible coating of either a phospholipid or dextran and polyethylene glycol (as required by different projects) will then be assembled onto the mNPs. Transmission electron microscopy will be used to characterize the nanoparticle size and size distribution; a vibrating sample magnetometer will be used to measure the magnetic properties of the mNPs in an alternating magnefic field (for quality control); and the heating effect of the mNPs will also be measured (again for quality control). Statistical analysis of the measurements of nanoparticle size measurements, magnetic measurements and heating measurements will be performed by the Biostatistics, Data Analysis and Computational Core. Advances that will be required in the NP Core as the work progresses include the development a wider range of particle sizes (currently only 8-20 nm have been produced); and scale up of the producfion of the mNPs to produce larger quantities will be needed.