Collaborative Research on Photoacoustic and PET Imaging Published in Nature Nanotechnology
A collaborative work between Prof. Jonathan Lovell's group at SUNY Buffalo and Prof. Weibo Cai's group was published in Nature Nanotechnology, the #1 journal in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology with a 2012 Impact Factor of 31.17.
In this work, ~20 nanometer nanoparticles (termed "nanonaps", formed via self-assembly of extremely hydrophobic chromophores that lead to kinetically-frozen stable nanoparticles) with tunable and extreme near-infrared absorption, which can be seamlessly labeled with 64Cu, were reported for non-invasive imaging of the gastrointestinal tract with photoacoustic tomography (PAT) and positron emission tomography (PET). This work represents synergistic collaboration between 3 groups with complementary expertise: nanonaps design/generation, PAT, and PET. Since in vivo PAT is a burgeoning research field, this is the first successful example of dual-modality PAT/PET imaging with a single nanoparticle, highly synergistic and enabling non-invasive imaging across micro-scale and macro-scale.
Detailed info can be found at this link: http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nnano.2014.130.html