Semiconductor quantum dots as contrast agents for whole animal imaging

Wen Jiang, Eli Papa, Hans Fischer, Sawitri Mardyani, Warren C.W. Chan

Trends in Biotechnology

Volume 22, Issue 12, December 2004, Pages 607-609

Recent developments in quantum dot (QD) technologyhave paved the way for using QDs as optical contrastagents forin vivoimaging. Pioneering papers showedthe use of QDs as luminescent contrast agents forimaging cancer and guiding cancer surgery. The poss-ible future use of QDs for clinical applications isexpected to have a significant impact, however manychallenges in this field have yet to be overcome.