BME Seminar Speaker: Ronald Xu, PhD
Dr. Xu will present "Multifunctional activatible microbubbles for multimodal imaging and image-guided therapy"
All dates for this event occur in the past.
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245 Bevis Hall
1080 Carmack Road
Columbus, OH 43210
United States
The following is the title and the abstract of Dr. Ronald Xu's talk:
Title: Multifunctional activatible microbubbles for multimodal imaging and image-guided therapy
Despite the recent advances in surgical techniques, clinical treatment of cancer is challenged by many technical limitations. Especially, existing clinical imaging tools do not provide intraoperative information for tumor margin assessment, therapeutic margin assessment, and drug delivery guidance.
We synthesized multifunctional drug-loaded activatible microbubbles for intraoperative cancer imaging and image-guided therapy. The microbubbles were fabricated by various processes such as emulsification, co-axial electrospray, and co-axial flow focusing. Multiple imaging agents were encapsulated in the microbubbles for simultaneous contrast enhancement in various imaging modalities. The surface of the microbubbles was modified for cancer-specific binding. Anti-cancer drugs, imaging agents, and oxygen were loaded in the microbubbles for sustained drug release with imaging guidance. Upon exposure to thermal energy, the heat sensitive microbubbles were activated, enabling ultrasound imaging of therapeutic margin during cancer ablation therapy. Applying ultrasound pulses triggered the fragmentation of drug-loaded activatible microbubbles, enabling controlled release of the encapsulated therapeutic and imaging agents.