How Do Quantum Dots Help Diagnose, Treat Diseases? How These Allow Scientists, Doctors See Inside the Body

There is a need for medical professionals and scientists to see inside bodies to develop accurate diagnoses and treatments of diseases.

A Phys.org report said that medical imaging tools had come a long way "since the humble x-ray," although most existing tools stay too coarse to quantify numbers or specific cell types inside the body's deep tissues.

A new study in mice from the University of Illinois stated that quantum dots could do that. According to Andrew Smith, professor in the Department of Bioengineering at U of I and co-author of the new research, quantum dots can measure things in the body that are extremely dynamic and complicated, and that cannot be seen at present.

Smith added quantum dots provide the ability to count cells, identify their exact sites, and observe changes over time. The co-author continued saying he thinks it is "really a huge advance.

Lab-Grown Nanoparticles

Essentially, quantum dots are lab-grown nanoparticles, just a few hundreds in terms of size, with special optical particles that can be detected by standard microscopy, tomography like PET or CT scanners, and fluorescent imaging.

Bioengineers like Smith can make the dots glow in specific colors and produce light in the infrared spectrum depending on the composition and size.

The professor explained that emitting light in the infrared is unusual. A very small amount of light is emitted by tissues in the infrared, and thus if one puts them in the body, they appear extremely bright. He added, "we can see deeply into the body and can more precisely gauge things than we could," using technology in the visible range.

Macrophages in Fat or Adipose Tissue

In the study published in ACS Nano, Smith and colleagues let quantum dots loose on macrophages. When one's body needs to gobble up pathogens or clean up cellular debris, macrophages will work. One of their tasks is to initiate inflammation, making the environment inhospitable to hazardous bacteria.

However, sometimes, they do the job very well. Depending on their tissue, chronic inflammation resulting from macrophage activity can lead to other conditions such as cardiovascular issues, diabetes, and cancers, among others.

The research team was specifically interested in macrophages in fat or adipose tissue. They aid, with obesity and weight gain, macrophage numbers are known to increase in adipose tissue.

More so, they are inclined to shift towards an inflammatory phenotype which adds to the development of insulin reluctance and metabolic syndrome.

Beating Dextran

Kelly Swanson, Kraft Heinz Company Endowed Professor in Human Nutrition in the Department of Animal Sciences of U and I and study co-author said that macrophages' number and site in adipose tissue are inadequately described, particularly in vivo.

The quantum dots the group developed allow for better quantification and characterization of the cells that exist in adipose tissue, as well as their spatial distribution, he explained. The researchers developed quantum dots coated with dextran, a sugar molecule that also targets macrophages in adipose tissue.

As proof of concept, the study authors injected the quantum dots into obese mice and compared imaging results against dextran alone, the present standard for imaging macrophages.

Quantum dots beat dextran alone throughout all imaging platforms, including simple optical techniques, a related ScienceDaily report specified.

Related information about quantum dots and nanotechnology is shown on Panoulis the CAT's YouTube video below:

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