Photosensitizer conjugated gold nanorods for photoacoustic imaging

• Main Author: Chee, Medaleine Jee Iue
• Other Authors: School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Bioengineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/61644
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Theranostic probes play an important role on the bioimaging and sensing platform to provide diagnostics and therapeutics application. The development of theranostic agent can combine both diagnostics and therapeutics that aids in the process of Photodynamic Therapy (PDT) by allowing the imaging of the disease model. This water soluble photosensitizer that has been frequently used in photothermal therapy, is conjugated with gold nanorods to form a theranostic agent. The known properties of this photosensitizer producing reactive oxygen species (ROS) upon appropriate light irradiation is the key component of PDT that aids in the destruction of cancerous cells. In this project, we have conjugated both the water soluble photosensitizer and gold nanorods to develop the theranostic agent. We characterized the conjugation of this probe and conducted PDT to determine the generation of ROS. Preliminary phantom studies have also been conducted where results shown enhancement in the conjugated probe that was brought about by the combination of adherence of the photosensitizer and surface plasmon resonance of gold nanorods.