BADRUL ALAM BONY

Atherosclerosis is a lipid-driven chronic inflammatory disease that leads to the formation of plaques in the inner lining of arteries. Plaques form over a range of phenotypes, the most severe of which is vulnerable to rupture and causes most of the clinically significant events. In this study, we evaluated the efficacy of nanoparticles (NPs) to differentiate between two plaque phenotypes based on accumulation kinetics in a mouse model of atherosclerosis. This model uses a perivascular cuff to induce two regions of disturbed wall shear stress (WSS) on the inner lining of the instrumented artery, low (upstream) and multidirectional (downstream), which, in turn, cause the development of an unstable and stable plaque phenotype, respectively. To evaluate the influence of each WSS condition, in addition to the final plaque phenotype, in determining NP uptake, mice were injected with NPs at intermediate and fully developed stages of plaque growth. The kinetics of artery wall uptake were as...

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the main causes of disability in children and young adults, as well as a significant concern for elderly individuals. Depending on the severity, TBI can have a long-term impact on the quality of life for survivors of all ages. The primary brain injury can result in severe disability or fatality, and secondary brain damage can increase the complexities in cellular, inflammatory, neurochemical, and metabolic changes in the brain, which can last decades post-injury. Thus, survival from a TBI is often accompanied by lifelong disabilities. Despite the significant morbidity, mortality, and economic loss, there are still no effective treatment options demonstrating an improved outcome in a large multi-center Phase III trial, which can be partially attributed to poor target engagement of delivered therapeutics. Thus, there is a significant unmet need to develop more effective delivery strategies to overcome the biological barriers that would otherwise ...

The gadolinium oxide (Gd2O3) nanoparticles are well-known potential candidates for a positive magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agent owing to their large longitudinal water proton relaxivity (r1) value with r2/r1 ratio close to one (r2 = transverse water proton relaxivity). In addition they may be used to sense metal ions because their r1 and r2 values can be altered in the presence of metal ions. This may allow us to study metabolic processes involving metal ions and to diagnose disease related to abnormal concentrations of metal ions in the body in a non-invasive way. In this study ultrasmall Gd2O3 nanoparticles were for the first time applied to non-specifically sense Zn2+ ions in aqueous solution. We explored this by measuring r1 and r2 values in the presence of Zn2+ ions in solution.

The gadolinium oxide (Gd2O3) nanoparticles are well-known potential candidates for a positive
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agent owing to their large longitudinal water proton
relaxivity (r1) value with r2/r1 ratio close to one (r2 = transverse water proton relaxivity). In addition
they may be used to sense metal ions because their r1 and r2 values can be altered in the presence
of metal ions. This may allow us to study metabolic processes involving metal ions and to diagnose
disease related to abnormal concentrations of metal ions in the body in a non-invasive way. In this
study ultrasmall Gd2O3 nanoparticles were for the first time applied to non-specifically sense Zn2+
ions in aqueous solution. We explored this by measuring r1 and r2 values in the presence of Zn2+
ions in solution.

An ideal T 1 MRI contrast agent should have a large r 1 value and r 2/r 1 ratio, which is close to 1. In this study, a new approach to accomplish this is presented using the mixed Cu(II)/Gd(III) oxide nanoparticle. The d-glucuronic acid-coated Cu(II)/Gd(III) oxide nanoparticle showed r 1 = 13.78 mM−1 s−1 and r 2 = 14.48 mM−1 s−1 (r 2/r 1 = 1.05). This result is due to reduced magnetization of mixed nanoparticle resulting from mixing of nearly nonmagnetic Cu(II) into the nanoparticle. This result shows that the d-glucuronic acid–coated Cu(II)/Gd(III) oxide nanoparticle is a potential T 1 MRI contrast agent.

We report here paramagnetic dysprosium nanomaterial-based T2 MRI contrast agents. A large r2 and a negligible r1 is an ideal condition for T2 MR imaging. At this condition, protons are strongly and nearly exclusively induced for T2 MR imaging. The dysprosium nanomaterials fairly satisfy this because they are found to possess a decent r2 but a negligible r1 arising from L + S state 4f-electrons in Dy(III) ion (6H15/2). Their r2 will also further increase with increasing applied field because of unsaturated magnetization at room temperature. Therefore, MR imaging and various physical properties of the synthesized d-glucuronic acid coated ultrasmall dysprosium oxide nanoparticles (davg = 3.2 nm) and dysprosium hydroxide nanorods (20 × 300 nm) are investigated. These include hydrodynamic diameters, magnetic properties, MR relaxivities, cytotoxicities, and 3 tesla in vivo T2 MR images. Here, MR imaging properties of dysprosium hydroxide nanorods have not been reported so far. These two samples show r2s of 65.04 and 181.57 s−1mM−1, respectively, with negligible r1s at 1.5 tesla and at room temperature, no in vitro cytotoxicity up to 100 μM Dy, and clear negative contrast enhancements in 3 tesla in vivo T2 MR images of a mouse liver, which will be even more improved at higher MR fields. Therefore, d-glucuronic acid coated ultrasmall dysprosium oxide nanoparticles with renal excretion can be a potential candidate as a sensitive T2 MRI contrast agent at MR field greater than 3 tesla.