Developing Nanotechnologies to Improve Medical Care

Imagine having the ability to take a single pill, or have one injection, and be ready for an MRI, CT scan, and PET scan at the same time? Or have medication go directly to killing a tumor rather than traveling throughout the body first?

College of Science physics professor Srinivas Sridhar is working with a team of physicians and scientists at Northeastern UniversityBrigham and Women’s Hospital, and Massachusetts General Hospital to make it happen. They were recently awarded an Innovations grant from CIMIT – the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Medicine – to develop nanotechnogies for image guided therapies.

MRIs, CT scans, and PET scans traditionally need to be done separately, and then the images need to be laid over each other in order to get the most accurate reading.

Sridhar is working on nanoplatforms to which magnets or drugs could be added and act as internal markers for guided treatments. This would help with planning of surgeries and radioactive treatments.

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Physics