Nanotechnology Characterization Tools for Biosensing and Medical Diagnosis

Medical diagnosis requires reliable identification of very low concentration of different biomarkers specific for medical conditions in a time-effective manner. In this chapter, we summarize the work reported on the application of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy for the detection and the identification of different biomarkers in body fluids, tissues, or in vivo.

In vivo near-infrared (NIR) fluorescence imaging used for clinical diagnostics and treatment monitoring provides a noninvasive approach for visualizing and peering deeply morphological details of tissues or living subjects with subcellular resolution. In this chapter, we describe the applications of organic dyes, metal complexes, fluorescent biomacromolecules, and nanoparticles (such as polymers, quantum dots (QDs), carbon-based nanomaterials, upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs), noble metal clusters, and Si-based hybrid nanoparticles) for NIR fluorescence imaging of living subjects.

MRI with Silicon Particles

Vibrational spectroscopic techniques are increasingly utilized in biomedical research. Attenuated total reflection Fourier-transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy has been applied extensively to investigate various diseases by determining the chemical and molecular differences coming with the disease. Being label-free, nondestructive, and inexpensive, biospectroscopy could potentially make a perfect diagnostic tool in the years to come.

Plasmofluidics, an extension of optofluidics into the nanoscale regime, merges plasmonics and micro-/nanofluidics for highly integrated and multifunctional lab on a chip. In this chapter, we focus on the applications of plasmofluidics in the versatile manipulation and sensing of biological cell, organelles, molecules, and nanoparticles, which underpin advanced biomedical diagnostics.

Lanthanide-doped upconversion nanomaterials are suitable for biological applications because of their near-infrared excitation property. The excitation wavelength is within the first biological window; therefore this can minimize the damage to biological samples for biomedical applications. Apart from upconversion luminescence, the doped lanthanide ions display inherent physical properties for multimodal bioimaging. The advance in nanotechnology also provides an opportunity for the synthesis of novel upconversion nanomaterial-based nanocomposites. Those hybrid structures further increase the number of modalities for biodiagnostic applications. In this chapter, we introduce the key features of lanthanide-doped nanomaterials and review the recent progress in biodetection and multimodal bioimaging.

Label-free Raman imaging is a noninvasive spectroscopic method for investigating the nature and distribution of molecular species within a sample. In this chapter, we describe the applications of conventional Raman imaging, as well as the related techniques of coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) and stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) imaging for medical, life sciences, and other biological applications.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ultrasound (US) are two prominent medical imaging modalities. They are extensively and routinely used in various medical fields, such as cardiology, embryology, neurology, and oncology. In this chapter we describe the application of nanoparticles for MRI and US image enhancement. Moreover, the utilization of nano-scaled compounds for multimodal MRI-US imaging, allowing further increase of diagnosis certainty, is depicted.

Magnetic tools here are defined as the nanotechnologies for medical diagnosis, including in vitro diagnostics, ex vivo examination, and in vivo imaging by using magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs). In this chapter, we describe the mechanism, instrumentation, and medical results of different advanced magnetic tools.

Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensors have fascinated impressive attention to detect clinically related analytes in recent years. SPR sensors have also multiple advantages over existing conventional diagnostic tools such as easy preparation, no requirement of labeling, and high specificity and sensitivity with low cost, and they provide real-time detection capability. There are some articles and reviews in literature focusing on the applications of SPR-based sensors for the diagnosis of medically important entities such as proteins, cells, viruses, disease biomarkers, etc. These articles generally give information on the determination of such structures merely, whereas this presented manuscript combines recent literature for most of the medically important structures together including proteins, hormones, nucleic acids, whole cells, and drugs that especially the latest applications of SPR sensors for medical diagnosis to follow up new strategies and discuss how SPR strategy is brought to solve the medical problems.

Photoacoustic imaging is a biomedical imaging method that has grown explosively over the last decades. Functional molecular and morphological information of biological molecules, cells, tissues, and organs can be obtained through photoacoustic images. In addition to endogenous light absorbing chromophores, various exogenous contrast agents have been developed to obtain molecular photoacoustic images. Thus, this technology has been soon popular in nanomedicine. This chapter introduces various types of photoacoustic imaging systems and recent trends in photoacoustic image-guided nanomedicine.

Dendrimers can be functionalized with multiple imaging and therapeutic moieties to establish dendrimer-based nanoplatforms for various applications. In this chapter we describe the recent progress in dendrimer-based nanomaterials for SPECT imaging applications with different purposes.

Conjugated polymer dots emerge as attractive molecular imaging nanoprobes in living animals because of their excellent optical properties including bright fluorescence intensity, excellent photostability, high emission rates, and low intrinsic cytotoxicity. In this chapter we focused on the preparation of near-infrared (NIR)-emitting polymer dots by nano-precipitation method (matrix-encapsulation method), miniemulsion method, and in situ colloidal Knoevenagel polymerization methods and their applications for in vivo NIR fluorescence imaging, including imaging of lymphatic basins, tumors, zebrafish, and oxygen.