Early diagnosis of diseases, including tumors, is the ultimate goal of biomedical imaging. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a technique for non-destructive and non-invasive diagnosis of a number of diseases including cancer. However, early detection of such diseases requires techniques with high sensitivity, while maintaining high specificities for cancerous or diseased cells. The use of contrast agents improves the image quality and hence leads to a significant improvement in image analysis which in turns leads to more reliable/sensitive diagnosis. Recently, contrast agents bearing 19F have been introduced as an attractive alternative to purely hydrogenated compounds, because of their unique spectroscopic signature which leads to a high signal to noise ratio. However promising these new fluorinated compounds are, their tendency to aggregate and the low mobility of fluorinated chains in physiological media have known to limit the sensitivity of 19F MRI for clinical applications. Recently, hyperbranched fluoropolymers demonstrate to be a promising platform for in vivo imaging by 19F magnetic resonance. There is significant interest in such hyperbranched polymers for use in nanomedicine applications. This project aimed to design, synthesize and characterize a series of novel fluorinated structures and examine their behavior in aqueous media and to assess 19F MRI capability of these new structure. Fluoropolymers, in this project, are polymers which are containing 19F that are soluble in water and can be readily functionalized to enable targeting. This project represented a key objective in the advancement of MRI research. This program of work had also developed a new and exciting collaboration between the host, Benoit Couturaud and collaborator (A/Prof Kristofer Thurecht) and had place this new team at the leading edge of this important field.
