(466e) Design Strategy and Applications of Citrate-Based Photoluminescent Materials

Photoluminescent materials have been widely used for a broad array of applications ranging from molecular biology, disease diagnostics, and implantable devices. However, traditional photoluminescent materials, such as quantum dots (QDs), green fluorescent proteins, graphene oxides, carbon dots, organic dyes, or fluorescent polymers suffer from toxicity concerns, poor luminescent performance (e.g. low photobleaching-resistance) or non-degradability thus hindering their applications, especially for in vivo applications. In this presentation, a methodology for the development of a novel family of citrate-based photoluminescent biomaterials and their applications will be discussed. Particularly, citrate-based photoluminescent dyes and degradable polymers can be synthesized by reacting citric acid with any amine-containing molecules along with other co-monomers such as aliphatic diols via a facile "one-pot" reaction. Two distinct types of fluorophores have been identified: a thiozolopyridine family with high quantum yield, long lifetime, and exceptional photostability, and a dioxopyridine family with relatively lower quantum yield, multiple lifetimes, and solvent-dependent band shifting behavior. This simple methodology has yielded a huge family of new photoluminescent biomaterials with tunable physicochemical and photoluminescent properties. Their applications in cell labeling and imaging, biosensing and regenerative engineering will be discussed. It is expected that this presentation will provide an insightful discussion on the citrate-based photoluminescent biomaterials and inspire the development of the next generation of photoluminescent biomaterials and biomedical technologies.