Integrating Nanomedicine and Ultrasound with Submicron Agents

TOPICAL COLLECTIONS

Guest Editors

Carly Pellow

University of Toronto, Canada, Department of Medical Biophysics; Sunnybrook Research Institute, Toronto, Canada; Princess Margarate Cancer Research Centre, Toronto, Canada

Carly Pellow received her BASc in Engineering Physics from Queen’s University, Canada in 2015. Currently, she is a Vanier scholar and PhD candidate at the University of Toronto, Department of Medical Biophysics under the supervision of Dr. Gang Zheng at the Princess Margaret Cancer Research Centre and Dr. David Goertz at Sunnybrook Research Institute. Her research focuses on the behaviour of submicron bubbles for ultrasound-mediated vascular and extravascular applications.

Danielle Charron

University of Toronto

Dr. Danielle Charron received her BASc in nanotechnology engineering from the University of Waterloo in 2013 and earned her PhD in biomedical engineering at the University of Toronto in 2020. She completed her doctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Gang Zheng at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, where she developed bioinspired nanomedicines for optical imaging and phototherapy. Her current research interests are directed towards understanding how nano–bio interactions impact the functionality of theranostic agents. During her doctoral studies, Dr. Charron served as the managing editor for Theranostics, and she continues to offer scientific editing services for researchers in the natural sciences.

Collection Overview

While ultrasound contrast agents are typically microbubbles on the order of 1-10 μm in diameter and fortuitously resonant at diagnostic frequencies, submicron agents have emerged to extend utility to increasing frequency ranges and extravascular applications. Conventional nanoparticles exhibit structural and functional versatility along with prolonged pharmacokinetic profiles. Consolidating these abilities with ultrasound by shrinking ultrasound agents to the nanoscale can profoundly affect agent behavior, bringing new possibilities as well as challenges. Already many submicron ultrasound agents have been formulated including echogenic liposomes, cavitation seeds, gas vesicles, nanodroplets, and nanobubbles, each having enticing potentials but unique difficulties. This methods collection aims to assemble approaches for agent formulation and characterization, theoretical models and experimental insights into their acoustic behavior, and demonstrations of advanced applications of these agents for imaging and therapy in vitro and in vivo. This collection will gather the interdisciplinary knowledge required to advance submicron ultrasound agents and unlock their breadth of potential.