The application of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to non-invasively assess disease biomarkers has been hampered by lack of desired contrast agents with high relaxivity, targeting capability, and optimized pharmacokinetics. We developed a novel MRI probe which targets HER2, a biomarker for various cancers and a target for anti-cancer therapies. This multimodal HER2-targeted MRI probe integrate...

Introduction Because hyperpolarized Xe gas NMR signals can result in four to five orders of magnitude polarization enhancement compared to thermal equilibrium signals even at high fields , hyperpolarized Xe gas MRI has shown great promise for lung imaging. Scientists have developed many techniques to assess lung properties, such as ADC (apparent diffusion coefficient) , XTC (Xenon polarization ...

We have synthesized gadolinium oxysulfide nanoparticles (NPs) doped with other lanthanides (Eu(3+), Er(3+), Yb(3+)) via a hydroxycarbonate precursor precipitation route followed by a sulfuration process under a H2S-Ar atmosphere at 750 °C in order to propose new multimodal nanoplatforms for Magnetic Resonance (MR), X-ray and photoluminescence imaging. Gd2O2S:Eu(3+) NPs strongly absorb near UV (...

We report the facile synthesis of arginine-glycine-aspartic acid (RGD) peptide-targeted iron oxide (Fe3O4) nanoparticles (NPs) with ultrahigh relaxivity for in vivo tumor magnetic resonance (MR) imaging. In this study, stable polyethyleneimine (PEI)-coated Fe3O4 NPs were first prepared by a mild reduction route. The formed aminated Fe3O4 NPs with PEI coating were sequentially conjugated with fl...

BACKGROUND The upregulation of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) on the endothelium of blood vessels in response to pro-inflammatory stimuli is of major importance for the regulation of local inflammation in cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis, myocardial infarction and stroke. In vivo molecular imaging of ICAM-1 will improve diagnosis and follow-up of patients by non-invas...

The development of efficient contrast agents for cell labelling coupled with powerful medical imaging techniques is of great interest for monitoring cell trafficking with potential clinical applications such as organ repair and regenerative medicine. In this paper, functionalised multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) were engineered for cell labelling in T1-weighted MRI applications. These soph...

Biodegradable, superparamagnetic microparticles and nanoparticles of poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) and cellulose were designed, fabricated, and characterized for magnetic cell labeling. Monodisperse nanocrystals of magnetite were incorporated into microparticles and nanoparticles of PLGA and cellulose with high efficiency using an oil-in-water single emulsion technique. Superparamagnetic co...

‘Smart’ contrast agents (CA) exhibit dynamic and reversible modulation of their relaxivity by specific physiological or biochemical triggers such as changes in pH, Ca concentration or enzymatic activity (1-3). The extracellular concentration of Ca plays important role in physiological and pathological processes in the nervous system. This led to the designing of a chelating system in which rela...

Methods Simulation study: In vitro studies have shown Ablavar to be 80-90% bound to albumin, with up to 10 fold relaxivity difference between bound and free fractions. We performed simulations to assess the effect of extravasation of the free fraction on signal. Vascular fraction measurements were simulated assuming slow two-compartment exchange for different contrast agent injection concentrat...

Previous studies using MR spectroscopy have shown that the extracellular pH (pH(e)) of tumors is acidic compared to normal tissues. This has a number of important sequelae that favor the emergence of more aggressive and therapy-resistant tumors. New MRI methods based on pH-sensitive T1 relaxivity are an attractive alternative to previous spectroscopic methods, as they allow improvements in spat...