Multimode Optical Imaging for Translational Chemotherapy: In Vivo Tumor Detection and Delineation by Targeted Gallium Corroles

Biomedical Applications of Translational Optical Imaging: From Molecules to Humans

Light is a powerful investigational tool in biomedicine, at all levels of structural organization. Its multitude of features (intensity, wavelength, polarization, interference, coherence, timing, non-linear absorption, and even interactions with itself) able to create contrast, and thus images that detail the makeup and functioning of the living state can and should be combined for maximum effect, especially if one seeks simultaneously high spatiotemporal resolution and discrimination ability within a living organism. The resulting high relevance should be directed towards a better understanding, detection of abnormalities, and ultimately cogent, precise, and effective intervention. The new optical methods and their combinations needed to address modern surgery in the operating room of the future, and major diseases such as cancer and neurodegeneration are reviewed here, with emphasis on our own work and highlighting selected applications focusing on quantitation, early detection, treatment assessment, and clinical relevance, and more generally matching the quality of the optical detection approach to the complexity of the disease. This should provide guidance for future advanced theranostics, emphasizing a tighter coupling-spatially and temporally-between detection, diagnosis, and treatment, in the hope that technologic sophistication such as that of a Mars rover can be translationally deployed in the clinic, for saving and improving lives.

Ultrafast electronic and vibrational dynamics in brominated aluminum corroles: Energy relaxation and triplet formation

We combined femtosecond (fs) VIS pump-IR probe spectroscopy with fs VIS pump-supercontinuum probe spectroscopy to characterize the photoreaction of the hexacoordinated Al(tpfc-Br8)(py)2 in a comprehensive way. Upon fs excitation at ∼400 nm in the Soret band, the excitation energy relaxes with a time constant of (250 ± 80) fs to the S2 and S1 electronic excited states. This is evident from the rise time of the stimulated emission signal in the visible spectral range. On the same time scale, narrowing of broad infrared signals in the C=C stretching region around 1500 cm(-1) is observed. Energy redistribution processes are visible in the vibrational and electronic dynamics with time constants between ∼2 ps and ∼20 ps. Triplet formation is detected with a time constant of (95 ± 3) ps. This is tracked by the complete loss of stimulated emission. Electronic transition of the emerging triplet absorption band overlaps considerably with the singlet excited state absorption. In contrast, two well separated vibrational marker bands for triplet formation were identified at 1477 cm(-1) and at 1508 cm(-1). These marker bands allow a precise identification of triplet dynamics in corrole systems.