Biomedical Applications of Novel Core-shell-shell Nanoparticles with Minimized Heating Effect for Imaging and Photodynamic Therapy

Description

Uponversion (UC) nanoparticles (NPs) have shown great potential in biomedical applications. The UC process takes the advantages of high tissue penetration depth of near-infrared excitation light and low auto-fluorescence. The current system, however, requires narrow band absorption around 980nm at which the absorption of water is significant and thus leads to over-heating issue. To avoid this issue, we have recently developed a new strategy to fabricae core-shell-shell UCNPs that display tunable UC emissions by single wavelength excitation at 808 nm. In this project, we will further apply our UCNPs to biomedical applications, including imaging and photodynamic thearpy against cancer. Anticander drugs will be loaded onto UCNPs, followed by further functionalization with cancer-targeting moiaties and evaluation for their in vitro and in vivo anticancer and imaging properties. This project will not only produce novel cancer-targeting nanomedicine but will also potentially benefit to the healthcare system of Hong Kong due to its effectiveness.