Life Sciences & Biotechnology
Title : | Rational Design and Development of NIR-emitting Multifunctional Quantum-dot based Nano-Theranostics: Paving the way through Intracellular Sensors and Subcellular targeting |
Area of research : | Life Sciences & Biotechnology |
Principal Investigator : | Dr. Vinay Sharma, Indian Institute Of Technology (IIT) Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir |
Timeline Start Year : | 2022 |
Timeline End Year : | 2024 |
Contact info : | vinayvasistha@gmail.com |
Equipments : | Multimode Microplate Reader (Upgradable to cell Imaging) |
Details
Executive Summary : | Theranostics (Therapy + Diagnostics) is an exciting area with potential to successful use of personalized nanomedicine. There is a global interest in developing theranostics probes which can be employed judiciously in healthcare. Chemical small molecules and nanomaterial specifically quantum dots have emerged as excellent imaging agents and hence their variants are expected to have theranostic potential, defining the future of diagnostics and therapeutics. The capabilities of nanomaterials is explored for diagnostics (as biosensors) and therapeutics (as alternative to antibiotics or anticancer drugs) in silos. The efficient use of nanostructures as photosensitizers in theranostic applications require rational tuning of their optical and physiochemical properties to efficiently work in the biological systems. Carbon-dot is a relatively new member of the carbon family and has excellent properties like excitation-dependent emission, high fluorescence quantum yield, structural tunability, and biocompatibility along with easy synthesis and functionalization. The proposed project sees a potential in c-dot based nanohybrids (containing a variety of dopants, metal ions and polymers) to be used as a theranostics probe and attempt to achieve subcellular targeting, diagnostic sensing and photothermal and photodynamic ROS generation using functionalization or surface modification of nanohybrids. The use of dopants is intended to tune the emission window to Far-Red to Near-IR region with contribution in light induced ROS generation for effective therapeutics. The project contains experimentation on nanostructure synthesis optimization for desired photophysical properties, cancer cell culture and employability of nanostructures for cellular uptake, cell specific targeting and light induced cytotoxicity to enable therapeutics. The project aims to deliver various efficient theranostic probes having desirable biological properties and establish c-dot based nanohybris as multifunctional theranostic probes. The project also looks at the cellular uptake mechanism of the complexes and proposes to use them in portable manner. This project is next step towards realizing the point of care use of carbon nanolight and its variants in applications like biosensing, bioimaging and therapeutics. |
Total Budget (INR): | 31,90,000 |
Organizations involved