Ching-Hsuan Tung

TL;DR: A cell labeling approach using short HIV-Tat peptides to derivatize superparamagnetic nanoparticles is developed, which efficiently internalized into hematopoietic and neural progenitor cells in quantities up to 10–30 pg of super paramagnetic iron per cell.

TL;DR: In vivo imaging showed a 12-fold increase in NIRF signal, allowing the detection of tumors with submillimeter-sized diameters, and this strategy can be used to detect such early stage tumors in vivo and to probe for specific enzyme activity.

TL;DR: A biocompatible, dextran coated superparamagnetic iron oxide particle was derivatized with a peptide sequence from the HIV-tat protein to improve intracellular magnetic labeling of different target cells, and internalized into lymphocytes over 100-fold more efficiently than nonmodified particles.

TL;DR: It is demonstrated that enzyme-activatable fluorochromes can be detected with high positional accuracy in deep tissues, that molecular specificities of different beacons towards enzymes can be resolved and that tomography of beacon activation is linearly related to enzyme concentration.

TL;DR: Novel, biocompatible near-infrared fluorogenic MMP substrates can be used as activatable reporter probes to sense MMP activity in intact tumors in nude mice and it is shown for the first time that the effect of MMP inhibition can be directly imaged using this approach within hours after initiation of treatment using the potent MMP inhibitor, prinomastat (AG3340).