Multimodality Molecular Sensors

Molecular imaging is an area of research aiming at developing new tools to help understand biological conditions and probe the molecular mechanisms of diverse biological systems. Multimodality imaging based on complementary detection principles has broad clinical applications and promises to improve the accuracyof medical diagnosis. This means that a tracer particle advantageously incorporates multiple functionalities into a single delivery vehicle. This is based on the premise that no single imaging modality or probe possesses all ideal traits of needed for quantitative imaging with high resolution and sensitivity.

The combination of non-ionizing MRI and fluorescent imaging techniques has received much attention in recent years because of their highly complementary capabilities for anatomical resolution and detection sensitivity. MRI is good for providing macroscoping information, such as whole-body biodistributions, whereas fluorescent imaging provides excellent information at the cellular and subcellular level for in vitro studies.

Our lab designs high resolution nanoprobes to detect lung cancer and stage tumor tissues. Our multimodality imaging methods can help diagnose and assess pathological information related to the cancer. We also develop image-guided therapies of lung cancer, along the following research directions:

1. Multimodality molecular imaging and targeted therapy

2. Nanotechnology for multimodality molecular imaging

3. In vivo applications for multimodal molecular imaging of tumors