IGERT Nanomedicine Distinguished Lecture

IGERT Nanomedicine Distinguished Lecture

Date: 10/24/2008
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: 440 Curry Student Center
Speaker: Lee Josephson, Ph.D, Associate Professor, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School

The detection of magnetic nanoparticles by MR can be used to develop in vivo contrast agents, in vitro based assays, and in vitro biosensors. Polymer coated iron oxide nanoparticles targeted to macrophages serve as MR contrast agents for imaging liver and lymph node metastasis. After the attachment of peptides, these nanoparticles yield improved tumor visualization by binding integrins selectively expressed either on tumor cells or gastrin releasing peptide receptors expressed non-tumor cells surrounding a tumor. The interaction of magnetic nanoparticles with molecular targets has also be used to obtain MR proton relaxation based assays and sensors. The ability of magnetic nanoparticles to enhance proton relaxation, the basic parameter measured by MRI, can be adapted to obtain drugs or devices with a wide range of applications in medicine and nanotechnology.