Speaker:Dr.Zhen Cheng,Stanford University

Sponsor:Prof.WANG Qiangbin

Time: 2:00p.m.Thursday,December 1st

Place：A718,SINANO

Abstract：A variety of molecular platforms including small molecules, peptides, aptamers and nanoparticles have been explored for molecular imaging of diseases. Melanin is a natural dark pigment that can be found in most organisms, and it has been extensively studied as a biomarker for melanotic melanoma. Molecular probes that can bind to melanin or are involved in the melanin biosynthesis pathway have been pursued for melanin targeted imaging. Over the past decade, we have developed clinical translatable 18F, 99mTc labeled benzamide analogs for melanin targeted PET and SPECT imaging. Furthermore, because of its’ strong chelation ability of metal ions and light absorption property, melanin can serve as an excellent target for multimodality imaging of diseases including PET, MRI and photoacoustic imaging (PAI). Tyrosinase, the key enzyme regulating melanin production, was thus explored as a novel reporter gene for PET/MRI/PAI trimodality imaging. Importantly, melanin nanoparticles have also been developed and used as new nanoplatforms for multimodality imaging and theranostics. Lastly, besides melanin, several other colored and dark materials including inorganic tripod-gold nanoparticles, quantum dots, and perylene-3,4,9,10-tetracarboxylic diiimide-based near-infrared-absorptive organic nanoparticles, and NIR-II dyes have been studied as new multimodal nanoplatforms for biomedical applications.