(818a) Fluorescent Pentablock Conjugated Polymer Nanoparticles for Diagnostics and Therapeutics

Nanoparticle-based materials are envisioned to play a critical role in the future of medicine, particularly in the areas of target-specific drug/gene delivery, early diagnosis, and disease treatments. Conjugated polymer nanoparticles (NPs) represent a novel class of promising alternative nanomaterials for diagnostics and therapeutics due to their high extinction coefficients, high fluorescence quantum yields, robust photostability, and ease of functionalization with target ligands. This talk we will highlight our recent efforts in developing a new class of multicomponent nanostructured materials and a modular platform that combines fluorescent probe, targeting ligands, and therapeutics, using simple synthetic chemistry, for detection of biological analytes and in vivo targeted imaging for early diagnostics and treatments of cancer. The nanoparticles consist of pentablock copolymers that include a far-red emitting dye made of a π-conjugated polymer for monitoring cellular uptake, an oligo(ethylene glycol) block that promotes stealth-like persistence in the blood stream and avoids protein opsonization and macrophage uptake in the body, and a targeting block containing folate for tumor targeting.  Our results demonstrate the modulity of this platform that can allow for independent tuning of optical properties, targeting agents, and nanoparticle size.