title: Optical drug monitoring: photoacoustic imaging of nanosensors to monitor therapeutic lithium in vivo.
abstract: Personalized medicine could revolutionize how primary care physicians treat chronic disease and how researchers study fundamental biological questions. To realize this goal, we need to develop more robust, modular tools and imaging approaches for in vivo monitoring of analytes. In this report, we demonstrate that synthetic nanosensors can measure physiologic parameters with photoacoustic contrast, and we apply that platform to continuously track lithium levels in vivo. Photoacoustic imaging achieves imaging depths that are unattainable with fluorescence or multiphoton microscopy. We validated the photoacoustic results that illustrate the superior imaging depth and quality of photoacoustic imaging with optical measurements. This powerful combination of techniques will unlock the ability to measure analyte changes in deep tissue and will open up photoacoustic imaging as a diagnostic tool for continuous physiological tracking of a wide range of analytes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Northeastern University , Boston, Massachusetts 02115, United States.
authors.forename: Kevin J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Cash
authors.forename: Chiye
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xia
authors.forename: Lihong V
authors.initials: LV
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Heather A
authors.initials: HA
authors.lastname: Clark
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D016903:Drug Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D008094:Lithium / Q000378:metabolism / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000379:methods*; D055620:Optical Phenomena; D061088:Photoacoustic Techniques
chemical_list: D008094:Lithium
keywords: bipolar; continuous monitoring; diagnostic; nanomedicine; nanoparticle