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The development of a highly efficient and cancer-specific magnetic nanocrystal probe system for in vivo magnetic resonance (MR) diagnosis of cancer is presented. Well-defined material properties, such as small size, improved magnetism, and also targeting moiety, are critical for the target-selective in vivo cancer detections.

The article explains a newly devised core-shell design concept, which can be used for the fabrication of the dual mode nanoparticle contrast agents (DMCAs). These agents are shown to be extremely beneficial for the enhancement of the accuracy of MR imaging.

A surface-modulated and highly biocompatible magnetic iron oxide nanocrystal probe that could be used for efficient intracellular labeling and their magnetic resonance imaging applications is presented. The preparation of these probes and the results from studies exploring their transport into various cell types and magnetic resonance contrast effect, cytotoxicity, and application in vivo monitoring of neural stem cell migration in rat spinal cord is described.

A report is presented on the development of a synthetically controlled magnetic nanocrystal model system that correlates the nanoscale tunabilities in terms of size, magnetism, and an induced nuclear spin relaxation processes. The magnetic model system further leads to the development of high-performance magnetic nanocrytsal probe systems for diagnosis of breast cancer lines.

The unique properties of magnetic nanocrystals provide them with high potential as key probes and vectors in the next generation of biomedical applications. Although superparamagnetic iron oxide nanocrystals have been extensively studied as excellent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) probes for various cell trafficking, gene expression, and cancer diagnosis, further development of in vivo MRI applications has been very limited. Here, we describe in vivo diagnosis of cancer, utilizing a well-defined magnetic nanocrystal probe system with multiple capabilities, such as small size, strong magnetism, high biocompatibility, and the possession of active functionality for desired receptors. Our magnetic nanocrystals are conjugated to a cancer-targeting antibody, Herceptin, and subsequent utilization of these conjugates as MRI probes has been successfully demonstrated for the monitoring of in vivo selective targeting events of human cancer cells implanted in live mice. Further conjugation of these nanocrystal probes with fluorescent dye-labeled antibodies enables both in vitro and ex vivo optical detection of cancer as well as in vivo MRI, which are potentially applicable for an advanced multimodal detection system. Our study finds that high performance in vivo MR diagnosis of cancer is achievable by utilizing improved and multifunctional material properties of iron oxide nanocrystal probes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]