The variability and adaptability of cancer types known to date can be better addressed with therapeutic strategies performing multiple functions: combination treatment simultaneously targeting several factors, molecular imaging tracing drug delivery pathways and biological sensing of cancer environments. We develop nanomaterials-based platforms for such multifunctional image-guided drug/gene therapies. Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are used as one-dimensional carriers for anti-inflammatory siRNA and anti-fibrotic PX-866 drug delivery to liver intended to mitigate the effects of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis and prevent its potential translation into hepatocellular carcinoma. SWCNTs exhibit type-specific emission in the near-IR water window with reduced biological autofluorescence and high tissue penetration depth. In our work different SWCNT types are complexed to specific combination treatment drugs or genes to separately assess the therapeutic effect and the delivery pathways of each therapeutic. Glucose-based quantum dots (GQDs) are developed in this work as an alternative zero-dimensional fully multifunctional platform providing dual color imaging and sensing of cancer environments. GQDs are specifically designed as biocompatible materials emitting fluorescence both in the visible (with up to 60% quantum yield) and near-infrared that can be potentially used for in-vitro and in-vivo detection respectively. pH-sensitivity of the emission allows for optical detection of cancer environments combining the essential optical diagnostic functions in one simplistic glucose-derived platform.

Multifunctional zero- and one-dimensional nanomaterials for imaging, sensing and multidrug delivery

256th National Meeting (2018)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.