CFP - Special Issue

Image Guided Drug Delivery

Guest editors:

Hong Ding, PhD
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences
School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences
The State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNY-Buffalo)
Amherst, NY14260, USA
Tel: 716-645-4838
Fax: 1-716-645-3693
E-mail:

Fang Wu, Ph.D.
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences
University at Buffalo, the State University of New York
Buffalo, NY 14260
Tel: 716-645-4828
Fax: 716-645-3693
E-mail:

After various different passively and actively targeted delivery strategies have been evaluated over the years, the efficient delivery of a drug to its designated site of action is still facing challenges by the traditional ways, especially in cancer chemotherapy and protein drug delivery. For example, the unfavorable biodistribution upon intravenous administration and rapid clearance from the circulation result in only a very small fraction reaching the destination organs or tissues. Moreover, the delay to track the striking features of a drug makes it difficult to dissect the drug fate under the physiological circumstance. Image guided drug delivery (IGDD) is a novel strategy that combines the effect of therapy and visibility into one system to overcome the limitations. Such a theranostic system can be used to localize therapeutic targets and monitor drug delivery in a visible way, therefore improve the therapeutic index and decrease systemic toxicity.

This comprehensive IGDD system combining the properties of both therapy and diagnosis in the same treatment system possesses numerous advantages over existing treatment approaches. The molecular imaging probes such as radiology, positron emission tomography (PET), single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), highly sensitive ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), luminescence/fluorescence and Raman, photoacoustic imaging as well as multimodal imaging probes can be incorporated with drug or its carrier. The variety of medical imaging tracking modalities will help in the development of highly effective delivery systems for site-specific treatment in a minimally invasive way, leading to enhanced understanding of cancer biology, disease mechanism and paths for their eradication.

We invite researchers to share their ideas and results related to:

• Novel smart biocompatible and/or biodegradable polymer applied on theranostics
• Metal or non-metal based nanoparticles as image probes applied on drug delivery
• PET, SPECT, MRI, luminance/fluorescent, Raman, photoacoustic, ultrasonic imaging applied on drug delivery
• Other medical imaging tracking modalities on drug delivery

Manuscripts for the special issue can be sent directly to the guest editor(s) by email with the subject "IGDD Special Issue", or submitted online at http://www.thno.org/ms/submit (mark "IGDD Special Issue" in the "Suggested reviewers" field to identify the paper).

Detailed formatting instructions, in particular, the formatting of references, can be found in http://www.thno.org/ms/author.