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Novel technique for real-time detection of carbon nanotubes in the body (Nano |
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June 06, 2009 |
(Nanowerk Spotlight) New work at the University of Arkansas has, for the very first time, demonstrated that Raman spectroscopy can be used to detect and monitor circulating carbon nanotubes in vivo and in real time. These findings could have a significant impact on the knowledge of how nanomaterials interact with living biological systems.
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) can be used for various advanced bio-medical applications. Before any clinical application of nanoparticles, it is imperative to determine critical in vivo parameters, namely pharmacological profiles including nanoparticle clearance rate from the circulation and their biodistribution in various tissue and organs. Until now, their distribution was only monitored by collecting samples after various time intervals, but this new research shows the ability of monitoring their concentration in vivo and in real time, while the animal is alive. Moreover, this work can be extended to the detection of circulating cancer cells that have been tagged by carbon nanotubes.
"We were motivated by the desire of being able to visualize individual carbon nanotubes moving in lymph, blood and tissues," Alexandru S. Biris tells Nanowerk. "Prior to our work it was not possible to visualize carbon nanotubes in vivo in real time or to observe how cancer cells migrate through circulation."
Biris, Chief Scientist and Assistant Professor at the University of Arkansas Nanotechnology Center, and his collaborator Vladimir Zharov, Professor and Director of the Philips Classic Lasers and Nanomedicine Laboratory at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences believe that in vivo flow cytometry using Raman detection technique is very promising for counting and identification of individual circulating nanoobjects with strong Raman scattering properties, and this technique can be supplementary or alternative to existing fluorescent and photoacoustic methods.
http://www.nanowerk.com/spotlight/spotid=10580.php
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