To extend the limit of current imaging techniques, a series of multifunctional nanomaterials, including highly sensitive imaging probes and ultra-low toxicity contrast agent have been developed and applied to a variety of practical clinical scenarios including intraoperative imaging of tumor margins and delineation of lymphatic system. Among them, the ultrasensitive Gap-enhanced Raman tags (GERTs) probes are undergoing clinical translation and potential commercial exploitation. 

Highly sensitive probes based on multifunctional polymer dots for lymphatic system imaging

Selected Publications：

1. Lin L, Zapata M, Xiong M, et al. Nanooptics of plasmonic nanomatryoshkas: shrinking the size of a core–shell junction to subnanometer. Nano Letters, 2015, 15: 6419-6428.

2. Zhang Y, Gu Y, He J, Thackray B, and Ye J, Ultrabright gap-enhanced Raman tags for high-speed bioimaging. Nature Communications, 2019, 10: 3905.

3. Bao Z, Zhang Y, Tan Z, et al. Gap-enhanced Raman tags for high-contrast sentinel lymph node imaging. Biomaterials, 2018, 163: 105-115.

4. Zhang Y, Liu Z, Thackray B, et al. Intraoperative Raman-guided chemo-photothermal synergistic therapy of advanced disseminated ovarian cancers. Small, 2018, 14: 1801022.

5. Cao F, Guo Y, Li Y, et al. Fast and accurate imaging of lymph node metastasis with multifunctional near-infrared polymer dots. Advanced Functional Materials, 2018, 28: 170717.