Several significant applications have been realized for light scattering in biomedical imaging. In order to improve imaging results with light scattering-based techniques, a variety of nanoparticles have been investigated as contrast agents, including gold nanoshells. As a method for studying the optical properties of plasmonic gold nanoparticles used as contrast agents for molecular imaging, we developed an automated goniometer instrumentation system. This system, which allows us to specifically study polarized angular-dependent light scattering of plasmonic nanoparticles, allowed us to perform a series of theoretical and experimental step-wise studies. The basic optical properties of the following gold nanoparticles were progressively investigated: (1) bare nanoshells at multipolar plasmonic resonances, (2) nanoshells with PEG modifications, (3) surface-textured nanoshells and (4) immunotargeted nanoshells (nanoshell-antibody bioconjugates) for cancer imaging. Based on the results from these studies, a new technique was developed to quantitatively measure the number of immunotargeted nanoparticles that bind to HER2-positive SKBR3 human breast cancer cells. Preliminary studies of determining the minimal incubation time of immunotargeted nanoshells with SKBR3 cells were also carried out to evaluate the potential clinical application of using gold nanoshells intraoperatively. We, therefore, anticipate that our findings will provide the theoretical groundwork required for further studies aimed at optimizing the application of plasmonic nanoparticles in scattering-based optical imaging techniques.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:RICE/oai:scholarship.rice.edu:1911/22233 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Fu, Kun |
| Contributors | Drezek, Rebekah A. |
| Source Sets | Rice University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Text |
| Format | 106 p., application/pdf |
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