Nanomaterials for Medical Imaging and In Vivo Sensing

Pre-clinical imaging is a technique that could help in investigating deep inside the rodents to obtain information regarding disease site and drug development process using a non-invasive approach. Diverse FDA approved contrast agents have been implemented since the evolution of these imaging technologies. The current limitations of these contrast agents include faster clearance and photo instability and could be unsuitable for multi-modal and hybrid imaging. These impediments can be overcome with the aid of developing new nanotechnology-based contrast agents. This opens up a new paradigm for researchers to visualize cancer to obtain nanomolecular information. During the past two decades, nano-based contrast agents have revolutionized pre-clinical imaging science, which offers to detect cancers early, rapidly, and effectively. Despite the fact, the concept and technology of imaging are old, the way we look at the disease using nanomaterials in a different perspective. Additionally, the imaging techniques combined with nanotechnology-based contrast agents can be used to investigate the interaction of drugs at a pre-clinical stage and the cellular level. Pre-clinical imaging is performed with two different strategies. The former techniques give anatomical information, which includes computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and ultrasound. While the latter presents molecular information using optical techniques, photon-acoustic imaging, and positron emission tomography. Recent developments in nanotechnology-based contrast agents have opened new avenues to alter and improve the current imaging modalities resulting in hybrid and multi-modal imaging approaches. Here, we intend to provide fundamental knowledge and general considerations of using nanomaterials in pre-clinical imaging modalities. This chapter provides extensive information about the advancements in nanomaterials for pre-clinical imaging applications. In the later part, we discuss the science behind individual nanomaterials with different imaging systems and its improvements in pre-clinical imaging. Also, the advantages and drawbacks associated with nanomaterials are presented. Finally, we discuss the application of different nano-based contrast agents and their application in biomedical imaging.