Gold Nanoprisms as Raman Signal Amplifiers for Bioimaging of Lung Cancer

Objective

Raman spectroscopy is a powerful tool for probing biochemical changes in situ at tissue level. The vibrational profile can provide invaluable molecular details for medical diagnosis and disease prognosis. Important technological as well as health and safety considerations, however, limits its clinical application, as spontaneous Raman is a relatively weak effect and high laser powers are required for rapid screening. Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) makes is possible to probe single molecules adsorbed onto a silver or gold nanoparticle, greatly enhancing the sensitivity of spontaneous Raman and therefore potentially significantly reducing screening times. However, the SERS sensitivity from spherical gold nanoparticles is still insufficient to detect trace biomolecules and/or the interaction between biomolecules, which may be overcome through using novel shape nanomaterials as SERS substrates for the improvement of the bio-detection limit. Recently, Pegylated gold nanoprisms (AuNPrs) have been successfully employed as signal amplifiers in multimodal in vivo imaging of cancer cells, and therefore pose a great potential for Raman spectroscopy as well. Excellent biocompatibility properties are known for Pegylated AuNPrs, with side lengths of 120nm and thicknesses of 10nm. They absorb strongly at a wavelength of 830 nm, with co-efficients of up to 37 µg.mL-1•OD-1, a wavelength within the tissue transparency window, promising deep penetration in vivo This project will explore the optimisation of Pegylated AuNPrs for surface enhancement of the Raman signal (SERS)of their local cellular environment for probing disease in vitro and ulimately in vivo. Lung cancer is the most common cause of death from cancer in the EU and is therefore chosen as a model for the development of a Raman based rapid screening technique for early detection of disease.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

• medical and health sciences clinical medicine oncology lung cancer
• natural sciences chemical sciences inorganic chemistry transition metals
• natural sciences biological sciences biochemistry biomolecules
• natural sciences physical sciences optics laser physics
• natural sciences physical sciences optics spectroscopy

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

• FP7-PEOPLE - Specific programme "People" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013)

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

• FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IEF - Marie-Curie Action: "Intra-European fellowships for career development"

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IEF
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

MC-IEF - Intra-European Fellowships (IEF)

Coordinator