Nanomedicine: development of multimodal molecular imaging probes for theranostics

The field of nanomedicine has revolutionised modern medicine. One area of nanomedicine where this holds particular import is theranostics; this is where materials are tailored to provide a diagnostic response to targeted drug delivery in vivo. In theranostics, utilising the advantages of multiple molecular imaging modalities within a single device is key to understanding the therapeutic benefit of the agent, where the release of the drug and the subsequent effect on a particular disease state can be directly observed. The development of novel theranostics requires advances in both fundamental science (physics, chemistry and biology), as well as the applied sciences (nanotechnology, (pre)clinical imaging) and this research program builds upon developing a fundamental understanding of how material properties affects function of the theranostic, and then translating the device into preclinical and clinical models.