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First Decision
Guest editor:
Dmitri Lapotko, Ph.D.
Director, Joint American-Belarussian Laboratory
for Fundamental and Biomedical Nanophotonics
Rice University
Physics and Astronomy
MS 61
6100 Main Street
Houston, TX 77005
Tel: 713-348-3708
Fax: 713-348-4150
Web: http://lapotko.rice.edu
Email:
Well known ability of light to act through biological, chemical, mechanical and thermal pathways at molecular and cellular levels in diagnostic and therapeutic applications, a high speed of light manipulation and a remote nature of optical methods suggest that the light may successfully connect the diagnosis, treatment and even the guidance of the treatment in one theranostic procedure. Theranostics emerged recently as an attempt to address the fundamental limitations in current medicine. The first limitation in medical practice is inherent in a system in which diagnosis, therapy and therapy guidance are three discrete and isolated stages. This separation slows the treatment and lowers its accuracy. Theranostics is a new, combined procedure that unites the three above stages in one single process. The second limitation relates to the low sensitivity and specificity of current medicines that often cannot access diseased cells in a healthy host and thus cannot support early-stage diagnosis and treatment. The solution is the development of a theranostic method and agent that functions at the level of individual cells. At present no technology or probe can provide cell level theranostics in clinic because this requires probes with tunable and/or multiple functions. We invite researchers to share their ideas and results related to:
Manuscripts for the special issue can be sent directly to the guest editor(s) by email with the subject "Nanoph Special Issue", or submitted online at http://www.thno.org/ms/submit (mark "Nanoph 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.
All inquiries should be sent to the guest editor(s) at the above email address.