Photothermal therapy (PTT) is attracting increasing interest and becoming more widely used for skin cancer therapy in the clinic, as a result of its noninvasiveness and low systemic adverse effects. However, there is an urgent need to develop biocompatible PTT agents, which enable accurate imaging, monitoring, and diagnosis. Herein, a biocompatible Gd-integrated CuS nanotheranostic agent (Gd:CuS@BSA) was synthesized via a facile and environmentally friendly biomimetic strategy, using bovine serum albumin (BSA) as a biotemplate at physiological temperature. The as-prepared Gd:CuS@BSA nanoparticles (NPs) with ultrasmall sizes (ca. 9 nm) exhibited high photothermal conversion efficiency and good photostability under near-infrared (NIR) laser irradiation. With doped Gd species and strong tunable NIR absorbance, Gd:CuS@BSA NPs demonstrate prominent tumor-contrasted imaging performance both on the photoacoustic and magnetic resonance imaging modalities. The subsequent Gd:CuS@BSA-mediated PTT result shows high therapy efficacy as a result of their potent NIR absorption and high photothermal conversion efficiency. The immune response triggered by Gd:CuS@BSA-mediated PTT is preliminarily explored. In addition, toxicity studies in vitro and in vivo verify that Gd:CuS@BSA NPs qualify as biocompatible agents. A biodistribution study demonstrated that the NPs can undergo hepatic clearance from the body. This study highlights the practicality and versatility of albumin-mediated biomimetic mineralization of a nanotheranostic agent and also suggests that bioinspired Gd:CuS@BSA NPs possess promising imaging guidance and effective tumor ablation properties, with high spatial resolution and deep tissue penetration.

Ocular diseases include various anterior and posterior segment diseases. Due to the unique anatomy and physiology of the eye, efficient ocular drug delivery is a great challenge to researchers and pharmacologists. Although there are conventional noninvasive and invasive treatments, such as eye drops, injections and implants, the current treatments either suffer from low bioavailability or severe adverse ocular effects. Alternatively, the emerging nanoscience and nanotechnology are playing an important role in the development of novel strategies for ocular disease therapy. Various active molecules have been designed to associate with nanocarriers to overcome ocular barriers and intimately interact with specific ocular tissues. In this review, we highlight the recent attempts of nanotechnology-based systems for imaging and treating ocular diseases, such as corneal d iseases, glaucoma, retina diseases, and choroid diseases. Although additional work remains, the progress described herein may pave the way to new, highly effective and important ocular nanomedicines.

Activatable theranostic nanomedicines involved in photothermal therapy (PTT) have received constant attention as promising alternatives to traditional therapies in clinic. However, the theranostic nanomedicines widely suffer from instability and complicated nanostructures, which hamper potential clinical applications. Herein, we demonstrated a terrylenediimide (TDI)-poly(acrylic acid) (TPA)-based nanomedicine (TNM) platform used as an intrinsic theranostic agent. As an exploratory paradigm in seeking biomedical applications, TDI was modified with poly(acrylic acid)s (PAAs), resulting in eight-armed, star-like TPAs composed of an outside hydrophilic PAA corona and an inner hydrophobic TDI core. TNMs were readily fabricated via spontaneous self-assembly. Without additional vehicle and cargo, the as-prepared TNMs possessed a robust nanostructure and high photothermal conversion efficiency up to approximately 41%. The intrinsic theranostic properties of TNMs for use in photoacoustic (PA) imaging by a multispectral optoacoustic tomography system and in mediating photoinduced tumor ablation were intensely explored. Our results suggested that the TNMs could be successfully exploited as intrinsic theranostic agents for PA imaging-guided efficient tumor PTT. Thus, these TNMs hold great potential for (pre)clinical translational development.

Many theranostic nanomedicines (NMs) have been fabricated by packaging imaging and therapeutic moieties together. However, concerns about their potential architecture instability and pharmacokinetic complexity remain major obstacles to their clinical translation. Herein, we demonstrated the use of CuInS/ZnS quantum dots (ZCIS QDs) as “all-in-one” theranostic nanomedicines that possess intrinsic imaging and therapeutic capabilities within a well-defined nanostructure. ZCIS QDs were exploited for multispectral optical tomography (MSOT) imaging and synergistic PTT/PDT therapy. Due to the intrinsic fluorescence/MSOT imaging ability of the ZCIS QDs, their size-dependent distribution profiles were successfully visualized at tumor sites in vivo. Our results showed that the smaller nanomedicines (ZCIS NMs-25) have longer tumor retention times, higher tumor uptake, and deeper tumor penetration than the larger nanomedicines (ZCIS NMs-80). The ability of ZCIS QDs to mediate photoinduced tumor ablation was also explored. Our results verified that under a single 660 nm laser irradiation, the ZCIS NMs had simultaneous inherent photothermal and photodynamic effects, resulting in high therapy efficacy against tumors. In summary, the ZCIS QDs as “all-in-one” versatile nanomedicines allow high therapeutic efficacy as well as noninvasively monitoring tumor site localization profiles by imaging techniques and thus hold great potential as precision theranostic nanomedicines.

We developed a biodegradable photothermal therapeutic (PTT) agent, π-conjugated oligomer nanoparticles (F8-PEG NPs), for highly efficient cancer theranostics. By exploiting an oligomer with excellent near-infrared (NIR) absorption, the nanoparticles show a high photothermal conversion efficiency (PCE) up to 82%, surpassing those of reported inorganic and organic PTT agents. In addition, the oligomer nanoparticles show excellent photostability and good biodegradability. The F8-PEG NPs are also demonstrated to have excellent biosafety and PTT efficacy both in vitro and in vivo. This contribution not only proposes a promising oligomer-based PTT agent but also provides insight into developing highly efficient nanomaterials for cancer theranostics.

Functionalized quantum dots (QDs) have been widely explored for multimodality bioimaging and proven to be versatile agents. Attaching positron-emitting radioisotopes onto QDs not only endows their positron emission tomography (PET) functionality, but also results in self-illuminating QDs, with no need for an external light source, by Cerenkov resonance energy transfer (CRET). Traditional chelation methods have been used to incorporate the radionuclide, but these methods are compromised by the potential for loss of radionuclide due to cleavage of the linker between particle and chelator, decomplexation of the metal, and possible altered pharmacokinetics of nanomaterials. Herein, we described a straightforward synthesis of intrinsically radioactive [64Cu]CuInS/ZnS QDs by directly incorporating 64Cu into CuInS/ZnS nanostructure with 64CuCl2 as synthesis precursor. The [64Cu]CuInS/ZnS QDs demonstrated excellent radiochemical stability with less than 3% free 64Cu detected even after exposure to serum containing EDTA (5 mM) for 24 h. PEGylation can be achieved in situ during synthesis, and the PEGylated radioactive QDs showed high tumor uptake (10.8% ID/g) in a U87MG mouse xenograft model. CRET efficiency was studied as a function of concentration and 64Cu radioactivity concentration. These [64Cu]CuInS/ZnS QDs were successfully applied as an efficient PET/self-illuminating luminescence in vivo imaging agents.

Nanoparticles (NPs) are new inspiring clinical targets that have emerged from persistent efforts with unique properties and diverse applications.

New strategies with high antimicrobial efficacy against multidrug-resistant bacteria are urgently desired. Herein, we describe a smart triple-functional nanostructure, namely TRIDENT (Thermo-Responsive-Inspired Drug-Delivery Nano-Transporter), for reliable bacterial eradication. The robust antibacterial effectiveness is attributed to the integrated fluorescence monitoring and synergistic chemo-photothermal killing. We notice that temperature rises generated by near-infrared irradiation did not only melt the nanotransporter via a phase change mechanism, but also irreversibly damaged bacterial membranes to facilitate imipenem permeation, thus interfering with cell wall biosynthesis and eventually leading to rapid bacterial death. Both in vitro and in vivo evidence demonstrate that even low doses of imipenem-encapsulated TRIDENT could eradicate clinical methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, whereas imipenem alone had limited effect. Due to rapid recovery of infected sites and good biosafety we envision a universal antimicrobial platform to fight against multidrug-resistant or extremely drug-resistant bacteria.