Cerenkov luminescence (CL) imaging utilizes the photons emitted during radioactive decay when charged particles travel faster than the phase velocity of light in a dielectric medium. In this talk, I will present a novel agent to convert and increase CL emission at longer wavelengths using multimodal protein microspheres. The 64Cu-labeled protein microspheres contain quantum dots encapsulated within a high-refractive-index-oil core. Dark box imaging of the microspheres was conducted to demonstrate the improvement in CL emission at longer wavelengths. To illustrate the versatile design of these microspheres and the potential of CL in disease diagnosis, these microspheres were utilized for in vitro cell targeting and ex vivo CL-excited fluorescence imaging of mammary tumors in rats. It was shown that by utilizing both quantum dots and microspheres with a high-refractive-index-oil core, the CL emission increases by four-fold at longer wavelengths. Furthermore, we demonstrate that these microspheres can be used for in vivo targeting of tumors.

Joanne is a PhD student in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Joanne Li (2015), "[Illinois] Integration of Quantum Dot Nanoparticles with Multimodal Microspheres for PET and Cerenkov Luminescene Imaging of Cancer," https://nanohub.org/resources/22598.

  BibTex | EndNote

1. cancer
2. cerenkov
3. Illinois
4. Imaging
5. Integration
6. luminescence
7. microspheres
8. multimodal
9. NanoBio Node at Illinois
10. nanoparticles
11. PET
12. quantum