BME PhD Proposal Presentation 

Date: Wednesday, November 1st, 2017

Time: 10:00 AM

Location: Manufacturing Related Disciplines Complex (MRDC), Room 2405

Committee Members:

Eilaf Egap, PhD (Advisor)

Hanjoong Jo, PhD

Krishnendu Roy, PhD

Younan Xia, PhD

Seth Marder, PhD

Title: NIR-II Fluorescence Imaging of Atherosclerosis with Organic Semiconducting Nanoparticles

Atherosclerosis is the leading cause of death worldwide, but is usually diagnosed at very late stage, since it may not cause symptoms until the arteries are severely narrowed. Thus, developing a targeted imaging strategy to detect atherosclerosis at earlier stage of the disease is important. Since atherosclerosis is a progressive inflammatory disease, we can utilize targeting inflammatory markers to selectively target endothelial dysfunction and early plaques. Fluorescence imaging in the second near-infrared window (NIR-II, 1000 nm-1700 nm) is an emerging technology that benefit from deeper tissue penetration compared with fluorescence imaging in the traditional near-infrared window (NIR-I, 700 nm-1000 nm) due to reduced photon scattering and tissue autofluorescence, and thus show a great potential for diagnosis and assessment of atherosclerosis. Donor-acceptor-donor (D-A-D) type semiconducting small molecules with reduced band-gap are a promising class of organic NIR-II emitting fluorophores that are in favor of clinical translation compared to their inorganic counterpart. Therefore, we propose to detect and image atherosclerosis plaques and inflamed endothelium using non-targeted or targeted nanoparticles composed of organic semiconducting small molecules with NIR-II fluorescence imaging. Preliminary results showed that NIR-II emitting D-A-D type molecules-encapsulated nanoparticles could passively accumulate in atherosclerotic plaques and be imaged ex vivo. Functionalized nanoparticles with a VCAM-1-internalizing peptide could specifically label inflamed endothelial cells both in vitro and in vivo. Further research will be conducted to assess the possibility of detecting endothelial dysfunction and atherosclerotic plaques in vivo with NIR-II imaging utilizing these nanoparticles as contrast agents.