Congratulations to Greta Jarockytė, who has defended her thesis "Investigation of the application of theranostic nanoparticles in oncological diagnostics and therapy" for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Biophysics. Scientific supervisor - Prof. Habil. Dr Ričardas Rotomskis.
In recent years, a great deal of effort has been devoted to the study of nanomaterials that could be used for both the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. This field is called cancer theranostics. One of the areas of cancer theranostics is the combination of fluorescence diagnostics and photosensitised tumour therapy.
The aim of this work is to investigate the potential of biocompatible gold nanoclusters and functionalised rare earth metal nanoparticles for use in cancer theranostics. Using in vitro model cell systems, it was investigated whether these nanoparticles could be used as photoluminescent markers and photoactive drugs.
The studies showed that gold nanoclusters stabilised with serum proteins accumulate in cancer cells and generate active oxygen species under visible light, which cause cancer cell death. Irradiation of photosensitiser-functionalised rare earth metal nanoparticles in cell monolayers and spheroids with infrared light entering the tissue transparency window generates singlet oxygen, which causes cell death. However, the penetration of the nanoparticles into three-dimensional cell spheroids is limited.
Mesenchymal stem cells can be used as nanoparticle carriers, which accumulate photosensitiser-functionalised rare earth metal nanoparticles and transport them in the tumour model - 3D cell spheroids.