Activities

Besides the consolidated use of contrast agents for in vivo diagnosis, imaging technologies can offer a valuable contribution to improve therapeutic procedures, including pharmacologic treatment and surgery. This constantly growing research field, better known as Theranostics, can allow the design of protocols where imaging can provide in information on the biodistribution, delivery/release, and therapeutic outcome of a given drug, with a minimal invasiveness and in real-time.

The current research effort of the group is primarily focused on the development of MRI procedures for the visualization of the intratumor release of a chemotherapeutic (e.g. doxorubicin) from MRI-detectable liposomes triggered by the application of low intensity ultrasound.

As far as Image-Guided Surgery is concerned, the classical approach is the design of NIR fluorophores conjugated with targeting vectors (mostly peptides) for specific markers of the disease. Attention is also paid to develop dual agents (e.g. PET/NIRF or MRI/NIRF) where PET (or MRI) detection is used to prepare the intervention and NIRF detection will help surgeons to improve the success of the surgical procedure.

Group

• Prof. Enzo Terreno (PI)
• Francesca Garello, Post-Doc Fellow
• Deysssy Patrucco, PhD student
• Giulia Tarso, MSc Student