HiPCO® Single-walled carbon nanotubes as a Diagnostic and Therapeutic Agent

In the recent era, nanomaterials are playing a critical role in cancer therapy for improving diagnostics and therapeutic effects. Especially in the area of targeted drug delivery various nanostructures such as polymeric nanoparticles, liposomes, dendrimers, iron oxide nanoparticles, gold nanoparticles, graphene, carbon nanotubes have been researched well [1], [2]. Among which carbon nanotubes grabs the special attention due to their unique optical properties.

The nanotube is used as the contrasting agent in near-infrared fluorescent imaging, Raman imaging and photoacoustic imaging. In addition to that single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) provide selective thermal ablation to cancer cells. SWCNT also kills cancer when exposed to the RF. Treating the cancer cell only with RF doesn’t kill the cell. Folic acid moieties have been attached to the SWCNT to increase the selectivity[3].

The HiPCO® SWCNT is used as a near-infrared photoluminescent (NIR-PL) imaging agent for non-invasive visualization of tissues. The semiconducting HiPCO® SWCNT species provides high fluorescence[4]. The HiPCO® SWCNT is shown to have significant ingestion via macrophages without showing toxic effect and stable imaging of the cells and tissues[5].

NoPo produces HiPCO® nanotubes which contain the high fraction of semiconducting SWCNT which would be well suited for the bioimaging application. We aim to provide the best suitable nanotubes for the biological application.

Reference: [1] K. H. Bae, H. J. Chung, and T. G. Park, “Nanomaterials for Cancer Therapy and Imaging,” Mol. Cells, vol. 31, no. 4, pp. 295–302, Apr. 2011. [2] Q. Zhou, L. Zhang, and H. Wu, “Nanomaterials for cancer therapies,” Nanotechnol. Rev., vol. 6, no. 5, pp. 473–496, 2017. [3] A. Tan, L. Yildirimer, J. Rajadas, H. De La Peña, G. Pastorin, and A. Seifalian, “Quantum dots and carbon nanotubes in oncology: a review on emerging theranostic applications in nanomedicine,” Nanomed., vol. 6, no. 6, pp. 1101–1114, Aug. 2011. [4] M. Yudasaka et al., “Near-Infrared Photoluminescent Carbon Nanotubes for Imaging of Brown Fat,” Sci. Rep., vol. 7, p. 44760, Mar. 2017. [5] Z. Gao, N. Danné, A. G. Godin, B. Lounis, and L. Cognet, “Evaluation of Different Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube Surface Coatings for Single-Particle Tracking Applications in Biological Environments,” Nanomaterials, vol. 7, no. 11, Nov. 2017.