Combination strategy by the engineered nanoparticles to enhance therapeutic treatment

Phototherapy, including PTT and PDT, is a promising strategy for tumour treatment due to its selective and localised therapeutic effect under light irradiation. The growth of nanotechnology in the field of biomedicine and clinical theranostics presents versatile opportunities to photo-based theranostics by integrating multiple functionalities in a unified nanoparticle. This project will create novel nanomaterials for optical imaging-guided tumour phototherapy. With such a nanoplatform, the nanoparticle will be engineered specifically for tumour homing. Together with the controlled light irradiation, the tumour will be selectively killed without causing damage to normal tissue in the dark. In addition, the rich photophysical properties of the prepared nanoparticles will enable monitoring of tumour treatment progress and assessing the therapeutic efficiency through optical bioimaging. The research works will include 1) the development of nanomaterials for PTT; 2) functional nanomaterials for PDT; 3) nanomaterials for photo-triggered combined therapy.