Monitoring Therapeutic Cell Treatments Using Novel Nanoprobes

Tissue regeneration through transplantation of therapeutic cells has the potential to revolutionize modern medicine. Therapeutic cells can migrate and differentiate to integrate into their biological environment. Despite great promises from preclinical applications, there are many open questions regarding successful approaches for tissue regeneration and safe applications of therapeutic cells in patients. Labeling therapeutic cells with imaging probes and tracking them with imaging technologies can answer these questions. However, previous translational imaging approaches for in vivo cells tracking had the main disadvantage of detecting only one imaging biomarker, which precluded multi- dimensional understandings of the fundamental mechanisms of cell therapy. We propose to solve this problem by testing innovative nanomaterials, which possess unique properties that make them detectable simultaneously by two medical imaging techniques. This will enable us to evaluate different factors, which may affect the efficacy of therapeutic cells. These multi- modality nanoprobes will be developed at Laboratory ICB (France) and then used to label stem cells at Daldrup-Link Lab (Stanford University). This project will allow, through bidirectional exchange of junior faculty and trainees, to conduct joint experiments, which take advantage of the complementary expertise of multidisciplinary researchers from the two labs providing critical input towards the fundamental advancement of cell therapies.