METAL NANOSTRUCTURES-ENHANCED AIE-BASED PHOTOSENSITIZERS FOR PHOTODYNAMIC THERAPY

MOHAMMAD TAVAKKOLIYARAKI

Publication

METAL NANOSTRUCTURES-ENHANCED AIE-BASED PHOTOSENSITIZERS FOR PHOTODYNAMIC THERAPY

MOHAMMAD TAVAKKOLIYARAKI

Abstract

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a non-invasive technique, based on photosensitizer molecules, that has been extensively used for therapy of different non-oncological diseases and various cancers. However, traditional photosensitizers are suffering from aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ) effect, due to π-π stacking. The ACQ leads to weak fluorescence at aggregated state, low photostability, and less ROS generation ability. There are two main strategies to enhance the rate of singlet oxygen generation (SOG) and the photostability of the photosensitizers. The first approach is based on the molecular design, where the new generation of photosensitizers such as aggregation-induced emission photosensitizers (AIE-PS), could be designed to address the aggregation-related drawbacks in classical photosensitizers. The second approach is the plasmonic enhancement of singlet oxygen generation, where the optical properties of the photosensitizer molecule could be modulated in the vicinity of plasmonic metal nanoparticles. In this Ph.D. work, different metal/AIE-PS nanohybrids with metal-enhanced SOG have been developed.