Engineering new nanostructures for enhanced interaction with imaging radiation

纳米工程提供了一种独特的策略来形成具有多种性能组合的新材料，这些性能被设计用于从光学和电子到生物技术和医学等领域。与纳米技术领域相关的一个基本兴奋源于这样一个事实，即在纳米尺度上，物理特性和现象不再仅仅取决于结构的组成，而且还取决于它们的尺寸和形状。纳米技术的一个很有前途的领域是医学成像，即利用光、超声波、射频波、磁场和X射线等辐射对患者的内部解剖进行成像，以诊断疾病。 利用成像辐射，人体内不同类型的组织之间获得对比度，然后使用这些组织形成图像。然而，许多疾病病理的自然对比度较低，不容易检测到。如果将设计成与成像辐射强烈相互作用的纳米材料注射到患者的血液中，这些“造影剂”可以通过医学成像来追踪，以阐明更微妙的、以前无法检测到的疾病病理。今天，大多数造影剂都是简单的纳米结构，直接从现有结构转化而来，以满足微电子/光子学行业的需求。事实上，最成功的医学成像纳米结构很可能来自于新型材料的设计，这些材料的性能被精确地设计为与已经在患者身上使用的特定辐射相互作用。 松浦晃一郎博士的研究项目旨在设计新的设计纳米结构，这种结构不仅可以用来检测疾病，还可以通过医学成像辐射在体内激活，改变大小、形状和成分。这种激活可用于非侵入性地给药，或更好地描述局部疾病环境，以评估治疗。开发和了解这些类型的纳米制剂如何与医学成像辐射相互作用的研究可以导致如何治疗患者疾病的新范式，以及未来可以改善患者健康的新医学成像或治疗工具的开发。

Nanoengineering offers a unique strategy to form new materials with a combination of properties engineered for applications in fields ranging from optics and electronics to biotechnology and medicine. A fundamental excitement associated with the field of nanotechnology stems from the fact that at the nanoscale, physical properties and phenomena are no longer dependent only on the composition of the structure, but also on their size and shape. One promising area for nanotechnology is in medical imaging, where radiation, such as light, ultrasound, radiofrequency waves, magnetic fields, and x-rays, is used to image the internal anatomy of patients to diagnose disease. Using imaging radiation, contrast is achieved between different types of tissues in the body which is then used to form images. However, many disease pathologies have low native contrast and cannot be easily detected. If nanoscale materials that are engineered to strongly interact with imaging radiation are injected into the bloodstream of patients, these “contrast agents” can be tracked by medical imaging to elucidate more subtle, previously undetectable, disease pathologies. Today, most contrast agents are simple nanostructures that have been directly translated from existing structures created to meet the needs of the microelectronics/photonics industry. In reality, the most successful nanostructures for medical imaging will likely result from the design of novel materials with properties engineered precisely to interact with the particular radiation that is already in use in patients. Dr. Matsuura’s research program aims to engineer new designer nanostructures that will not only be used to detect disease, but also can be activated in the body with medical imaging radiation to change size, shape, and composition. This activation can be used to non-invasively deliver drugs or better characterize a local disease environment to evaluate therapy. Research in developing and understanding how these types of nanoscale agents interact with medical imaging radiation can lead to new paradigms of how to treat diseases in patients, and to the development of new medical imaging or therapeutic tools that can improve patient health in the future.