Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) have a high optical absorbance in the near-infrared (NIR) region. In this special optical window, biological systems are known to be highly transparent. The optical properties of SWNTs provide an opportunity for selective photothermal therapy for cancer treatment. Specifically, CoMoCAT® nanotubes with a uniform size (about 0.81 nm) and a narrow absorption peak at 980 nm are ideal candidates for such a novel approach. Here, CoMoCAT® SWNTs are conjugated to folate, which can bind specifically to the surface of the folate receptor tumor markers. Folate-SWNT (FA-SWNT) targeted tumor cells were irradiated by a 980-nm laser. In our in vitro and in vivo experiments, FA-SWNT effectively enhanced the photothermal destruction on tumor cells and noticeably spared the photothermal destruction for nontargeted normal cells. Thus, SWNTs, combined with suitable tumor markers, can be used as novel nanomaterials for selective photothermal therapy for cancer treatment.

Oxidative coupling of a tetraalkylbipyrrole under FeIII-mediated coupling conditions in the presence of HCl results in a mixture of cyclo[6]- and cyclo[7]pyrroles, as well as the known cyclo[8]pyrrole. This "matched set" of heteroannulenes was analyzed by spectroscopic, electrochemical, and X-ray diffraction methods.

Translocation and localization of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) in normal and cancerous cells have significant biomedical implications. In this study, SWNTs functionalized with different biomolecules in cells were observed with confocal laser scanning microscopy. Functionalized with PL-PEG, SWNTs were found to localize exclusively in mitochondria of both tumor and normal cells due to mitochondrial transmembrane potential, but they were found mainly in lysosomes of macrophages due to phagocytosis. However, when conjugated with different molecules, the subcellular localization of the surface-modified SWNT-PL-PEG depended on how SWNTs enter the cells: inside mitochondria if crossing cell membrane or inside lysosomes if being endocytosized. We also show that mitochondrial SWNT-PL-PEG, when irradiated with a near-infrared light, can induce cell apoptosis due to mitochondrial damages. These findings provide a better mechanistic understanding of cellular localization of SWNTs, which could lead to advanced biomedical applications such as the design of molecular transporters and development of SWNT-assisted cancer therapies.

Photoexcitation of an electron donor-acceptor linked dyad containing gold(III) and zinc(II) porphyrins (ZnPQ-AuIIIPQ+) results in electron transfer from the singlet excited state of ZnPQ to the metal center of AuPQ+ to produce the charge-separated state (ZnPQ*+-AuIIPQ) which has a long lifetime (10 mus) in nonpolar solvents such as cyclohexane and toluene.

Gold(III) porphyrins of the type (P-R)AuPF(6), where P = 5,10,15,20-tetrakis(3,5-di-tert-butylphenyl)porphyrin and R is equal to H (1), NO(2) (2), or NH(2) (3) which is substituted at one of the eight beta-pyrrolic positions of the macrocycle, were investigated as to their electrochemistry and spectroelectrochemistry in nonaqueous media. Each compound undergoes three reductions, the first of which involves the central metal ion to give a Au(II) porphyrin or a Au(III) porphyrin pi-anion radical depending upon the nature of the porphyrin ring substituent. A similar metal-centered reduction also occurs for compounds 1, 3, and Au(III) quinoxalinoporphyrin, (PQ)AuPF(6) (4), where PQ = 5,10,15,20-tetrakis(3,5-di-tert-butylphenyl)quinoxalino[2,3-b]porphyrin, and these results on the three Au(III) porphyrins overturn the long held assumption that reductions of such complexes only occur at the macrocycle. In contrast, when a NO(2) group is introduced on the porphyrin ring to give (P-NO(2))AuPF(6) (2), the site of electron transfer is changed from the gold metal to the macrocycle to give a porphyrin pi-anion radical in the first reduction step. This change in the site of electron transfer was examined by electrochemistry combined with thin-layer UV-vis spectroelectrochemistry and ESR spectroscopy of the singly reduced compound produced by chemical reduction. The reorganization energy (lambda) of the metal-centered electron transfer reduction for (P-H)AuPF(6) (1) in benzonitrile was determined as lambda = 1.23 eV by analyzing the rates of photoinduced electron transfer from the triplet excited states of an organic electron donor to 1 in light of the Marcus theory of electron transfer. The lambda value of the metal-centered electron transfer of gold porphyrin (1) is significantly larger than lambda values of ligand-centered electron transfer reactions of metalloporphyrins.

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) in a poly(ethylene)ghycol solution are a biocompatible transporters with strong optical absorption in the near-infrared region, in which the biological tissue is almost transparent with very low absorbance. Here, antibody-functionalized SWNTs for tumor early detection with photoacoustic molecular imaging in vivo are reported. To lay the groundwork for this goal and insure system stability, images were collected in tissue simulating phantoms to determine appropriate detectable concentrations of SWNTs. Preliminary in vitro and in vivo results showed that a high contrast and a high efficient targeting of integrin alpha(v)beta(3) positive U87 human glioblastoma tumours in mice could be achieved. The nontoxicity of functionalized SWNTs has also been demonstrated in our experiment; this feature ensures that SWNTs can be used for clinical applications. This study suggests that photoacoustic molecular imaging with antibody-functionalized SWNTs has the potential to be an effective early tumor diagnosis method.

Fabricated iron oxide nanoparticles conjugated with tumor ligands for targeted TAT tumor detection at the molecular level was reported for the first time. The results indicate that thermoacoustic molecular imaging with functionalized iron oxide nanoparticles may contribute to targeted and functional early cancer imaging. Also, the modified iron oxide nanoparticles combined with suitable tumor markers may also be used as novel nanomaterials for targeted and guided cancer thermal therapy.

Abstract-General-purpose computing domain has experienced strategy transfer from scale-up to scale-out in the past decade. In this paper, we take a step further to analyze ARMprocessor based cluster against Intel X86 workstation, from both energy-efficiency and cost-efficiency perspectives. Three applications are selected and evaluated to represent diversified applications, including Web server throughput, in-memory database, and video transcoding. Through detailed measurements, we make the observations that the energy-efficiency ratio of the ARM cluster against the Intel workstation varies from 2.6-9.5 in in-memory database, to approximately 1.3 in Web server application, and 1.21 in video transcoding. We also find out that for the Intel processor that adopts dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) techniques, the power consumption is not linear with the CPU utilization level. The maximum energy saving achievable from DVFS is 20%. Finally, by utilizing a monthly cost model of data centers, we conclude that ARM cluster based data centers are feasible, and are advantageous in computationally lightweight applications, e.g. in-memory database and network-bounded Web applications. The cost advantage of ARM cluster diminishes progressively for computation-intensive applications, i.e. dynamic Web server application and video transcoding, because the number of ARM processors needed to provide comparable performance increases.