(261b) Assemblies of Plasmonic Nanoparticles and Their Biomedical Applications

Plasmons of gold nanoparticles (NPs) represent one of the best examples of collective properties of nanoscale systems.   Engineering of nanoscale assemblies of Au NPs opens great prospects for biomedical applications.  The presentation will include the state-of-the-art account of preparation and properties of both extended and discrete assemblies of plasmonic NPs.  The first type of assemblies includes supercrystals of gold spheres and nanorods (NRs) and layered composites from the same building blocks made by the layer-by-layer assembly.  The second type of assemblies covers the small superstructures of 3-30 NPs or NRs.  Methods to control the structure of both assemblies and how these properties affect the application-defining optical, electrical, and mechanical properties will be discussed. 

The application space to be covered in this presentation includes cancer/inflammation detection using photoacoustic imaging, drug delivery, photodynamic cancer treatment, continuous monitoring of cellular metabolism, and neuroprosthetic dev ices.   The latter represent particularly unexplored area of research for gold nanostructures and will greatly benefit from the unique combination of optical, mechanical, and biological properties of plasmonic NP assemblies.  New directions of research in this area will also be mapped out and include (1) chiral plasmonic nanoassemblies; (2) artificial viruses from inorganic NPs; (3) NPs from non-metal plasmonic  materials;  and (4) biodegradable inorganic NPs and assemblies.

Special attention will be made on new methods of evaluation of toxicology of nanoparticles involving three-dimension cell cultures in spheroids of liver cells which displayed  unexpected transport characteristics of NPs in the tissue. 

Selected References:

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W. Chen, et al, Multifunctional Magnetoplasmonic Nanoparticle Assemblies for Cancer Therapy and Diagnostics (Theranostics), Macromol. Rapid Commun., 2009,30,228.

J. Lee, et al, In vitro Toxicity Testing of Nanoparticles in 3D Cell Culture, Small, 2009, 5 (10), 1213-1221.

Podsiadlo, P.; et al, Gold Nanoparticles Enhance the Anti-Leukemia Action of a 6-Mercaptopurine Chemotherapeutic Agent.  Langmuir,  2008,  24(2), 568-574.

R. A. Alvarez-Puebla, et al, Real-Time Detection of Scrambled Prions on 3D Gold Nanorod Supercrystals, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2011, 108 (20) 8157-8161.

Yang, M. et al,  SERS-Active Gold Lace Nanoshells with Built-in Hotspots.    Nano Letters  2010,  10(10),  4013-4019.

S. Srivastava,et al, Light-Controlled Self-Assembly of Semiconductor Nanoparticles into Twisted Ribbons, Science, 2010, 327, 1355, 1355-1359.

Y. Xia, et al,  Self-assembly of virus-like self-limited inorganic supraparticles from nanoparticles, Nature Nanotechnology, 2011, 6, 580-587.

L. Xu, et al, Regiospecific Plasmonic Assemblies for in-situ Raman Spectroscopy in Live Cells, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2012, in press.

H. Zhang, et al,, Gold Nanoparticles for Neural Prosthetics Devices, Nano Letters, 2012, in press.