Journal of Nanomedicine & Nanotechnology

Sugar bait-molecule for preferential gold nanoparticle uptake: Development of a novel metabolic based methodology for functional CT imaging

3^rd International Conference on Nanotek & Expo

December 02-04, 2013 Hampton Inn Tropicana, Las Vegas, NV, USA

Rachela Popovtzer

Accepted Abstracts: J Nanomed Nanotechnol

Abstract:

The main functional imaging technique, FDG-PET, is based on increased glucose metabolic activity in cancerous tissue and provides the ability to discern molecular and cellular alterations associated with pathological conditions, even before structural modifications occur. However, it is prone to non-specificity as glucose uptake is not cancer-specific, it is dependent on availability of short-lived cyclotron radiotracers, and above all, it lacks anatomical information of the functional results. Here we describe a novel method that could provide simultaneous functional and structural imaging capabilities, with the most widely available imaging modality - the CT. We have developed Glucose Functionalized Gold Nanoparticles (GF-GNP), which like FDG, detects glucose metabolic activity while inducing distinct contrast in CT imaging. We have recently discovered, both in vitro and in vivo , that these GF-GNP exhibit increased uptake in cancer cells compared to the surrounding normal tissue. Remarkably, we found that the increased uptake is selective to a specific intra-molecular glucose site, to which the gold nanoparticle is conjugated. This finding proves that despite the huge size of the GNP, the GF-GNP is being recognized by cancer cells as glucose. Thus, we propose the GF-GNP as a CT contrast agent for detecting glucose metabolic activity

Biography :

Rachela Popovtzer received her B.Sc. degree in physics and philosophy from Bar-Ilan University, her M.Sc. degree in biomedical engineering from Tel-Aviv University and her Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Tel-Aviv University in 2006. During the years 2006-2008, she was a post doctorate fellow at the University of Michigan with Prof. Raoul Kopelman. Since 2008 she is a senior lecturer at the faculty of Engineering and the Institute of Nanotechnology at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. Her current research focuses on the development of smart nanoprobes for molecular diagnostic and therapeutic applications