Cylindrical polymer brushes as luminescent probes for bioimaging

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7 million Canadians live in rural or remote communities, and consistently show poorer overall health outcomes than urban populations. A lack of healthcare professionals as well as longer distances to healthcare facilities are both major drivers of this discrepancy, as the 18% of rural Canadians are served by only 8% of the practicing physicians in Canada. Where healthcare resources are limited, diagnostic tools are needed that are both inexpensive and readily available. Smartphones are now ubiquitous, and with built-in light sources, cameras, and network connectivity are ideal for portable bioanalysis and imaging. These assays require luminescent probes with sufficient brightness to be visible with a smartphone camera. This can be achieved using nanoparticles that incorporate hundreds to thousands of luminescent dye molecules into a single nanoscale object, creating single points of brightness that a smartphone can detect. Polymer dots (or Pdots) are one such class of nanoparticle, consisting of >50% of luminescent polymer by weight or volume, surrounded with a hydrophilic exterior to render them soluble in water. Our research group at UBC develops multifunctional Pdot probes for bioanalysis and imaging.To translate these technologies to application, we must now understand how nanoparticle shape and rigidity impact the circulation time and cellular interactions of Pdots in vivo. Prof. Markus Müllner at the University of Sydney has recently shown that cylindrical polymer brushes (CPBs) - long chains of polymers bonded to a central backbone - can exhibit long circulation times, improved cell penetration, and tunable localization within cells. In collaboration with Prof. Müllner, this project will develop luminescent Pdots with a CPB morphology, and will study their penetration kinetics and imaging capabilities within multicellular tumour spheroids. This project will help us understand how nanoparticle shape affects Pdot performance in imaging for the first time, in both cells and tumour mimics.