This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will demonstrate the feasibility of using an innovative multimodal imaging agent for cell tracking. While traditional contrast agents are suitable for many clinical imaging approaches, new fields of medicine, such as stem cell transplantation, and improvements in imaging technology are creating small?but growing?niches for more sophisticated contrast agents than what is traditionally used. For instance, there is a great deal of interest in functionalized contrast agents which tag specific cells based on surface markers, or are internalized by stem cells prior to transplantation so that the cell bolus may be tracked non-invasively to its site of engraftment. To address these markets, this project intends to develop a range of imaging tools based on mesoporous silica. The 50-200 nanometer particles have 3-4 nm pores into which a drug or other bioactive molecule can be loaded, and with further surface functionalization to give the particle contrast in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT), ultrasound and fluorescent microscopy. The result is a multi-modal, multifunctional particle that addresses all the needs of state-of-the-art bioimaging. begins with the relative ease and very low cost of production of our mesoporous silica nanoparticles, which can be priced competitively with other products that have a fraction of the functionality: quantum dots, traditional contrast agents, and even other novel contrast agents, which may be used for stem cell tracking, but only one imaging modality. This includes new products offered by other niche manufacturers. Using these nanoparticles, an investigator can label a stem cell transplant, use ultrasound for an image-guided deployment of the cells into a host animal, and perform follow-up studies with MRI or CT. After the experiment, histology can be performed to detect labeled cells in-situ. With one reagent used through the whole experiment, the investigator can more rapidly assess his/her approach, which leads to a more rapid translation to clinical implementation
