Imaging of Nanoparticle Delivery Using Terahertz Waves - Intracellular Delivery: Fundamentals and Applications - page 701

Imaging of Nanoparticle Delivery
Using Terahertz Waves

Joo-Hiuk Son, Seung Jae Oh, Jihye Choi, Jin-Suck Suh, Yong-Min Huh,
and Seungjoo Haam

Abstract In this paper, the principle of terahertz molecular imaging (TMI) used for
the visualization of nanoparticle delivery is presented. In addition, a brief review of
terahertz (THz) technology in terms of the generation, detection, and characteristics
of THz waves is given. The TMI technique entails the sensitive measurement of
the change in the THz optical coefficients of water induced by the surface plasmon
resonance of nanoparticles. It is shown that the measured THz response is linearly
proportional to the concentration of the nanoparticles. Nanoparticle delivery to a
cancerous tumor and the organs in a mouse is imaged by employing the TMI technique.
This technique enables target-specific sensing of cancers as well as molecular
diagnosis of drug delivery.

Keywords Cancer diagnosis • Drug delivery • Optical coefficients • Molecular
imaging • Terahertz waves

1 Introduction

A number of nanoparticle probes and drugs have recently been developed for use
in the areas of therapeutics and diagnostics (Lee et al. 2007, 2008 ; McCarthy and
Weissleder 2008 ). It is imperative that nanoparticles be delivered to the targeted
cells or organs for obtaining maximum diagnostic and therapeutic results; further,
accurate monitoring of nanoparticle delivery to the target cells is important in

J.-H. Son ( * )
Department of Physics, University of Seoul, Seoul 130-743, Korea
e-mail: [e-mail]
S.J. Oh, J.-S. Suh, and Y.-M. Huh
Department of Radiology, College of Medicine, Yonsei University, Seoul 120-752, Korea
J. Choi and S. Haam
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Yonsei University,
Seoul 120-752, Korea