Semiconducting polymer nanoparticles could make excellent photoacoustic contrast agents for molecular imaging in vivo, according to new work by researchers at Stanford University in the US. When intravenously injected with the nanoparticles, mice show a photoacoustic signal that is much stronger than that produced in animals injected with an equal mass of carbon nanotubes and gold nanorods, which are the most commonly used photoacoustic contrast agents today. The polymer nanoparticles can also be used to image reactive oxygen species, important endogenous signalling molecules implicated in the early stages of many diseases……
http://nanotechweb.org/cws/article/tech/56204
