<p>Breakthroughs in medicine and bioimaging with up-conversion nanoparticles</p>

Abstract

Nanomedicine is a medical application of biochemistry incorporated with materials chemistry at the scale of nanometer for the purpose of diagnosis, prevention, and treatment. New models and approaches are typically associated with nanomedicine for precise multifunctional diagnostic systems at molecular level. Hence, employing nanoparticles (NPs) has unveiled new opportunities for efficient therapies and remedy of difficult-to-cure diseases. Among all types of inorganic NPs, lanthanide-doped up-conversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) have shown excellent potential for biomedical applications, especially for multimodal bioimaging including fluorescence and electron microscopy. Association of these visualization techniques plus the capability for transporting biomaterials and drugs make them superior agents in the field of nanomedicine. Accordingly, in this review, we firstly presented a fundamental understanding of physical and optical properties of UCNPs and secondly, we illustrated some of the prominent associations with bioimaging, theranostics, cancer therapy, and optogenetics.

Stimuli‐Responsive Nanocomposite Hydrogels for Biomedical Applications

“…Furthermore, pioneering studies should outline and promote assembly methodologies that can improve current upconversion optical efficiency to even greater levels, thus decreasing the exposure times of NIR irradiation (i.e., can damage tissues from accumulated temperature build‐up) that is required to activate the implanted hybrid platforms, while also broadening their applicability to lower cost, commercially available in vivo imaging machines with less powerful, and focused NIR irradiation sources. [ 154 ]…”

Fast wide-field upconversion luminescence lifetime thermometry enabled by single-shot compressed ultrahigh-speed imaging

“…Moreover, long-lived (i.e., microseconds to milliseconds) photoluminescence of UCNPs circumvents interferences from autofluorescence and scattering during image acquisition, which translates into improved imaging contrast and detection sensitivity. Finally, because of advances in their synthesis and surface functionalization coupled with the innovation of core/shell engineering, over the years, UCNPs have become much brighter, photostable, biocompatible, and non-toxic 32 . As a result of these salient merits, UCNPs are one of the frontrunners in temperature indicators for PLI.…”

The Impact of Optogenetics on Regenerative Medicine

“…Unfortunately, several tissues located in the deepest zone cannot be investigated for clinical purposes. For this reason, researchers are studying alternative solutions, such as X-optogenetics, which involves X-rays, and U-optogenetics, which exploits sonoluminescence [51,52].…”