Research Projects

Surgical removal of solid tumors is crucial for long-term survival in cancer patients, especially in advanced metastatic cases where the tumor has spread to various organs. Clear visualization of tumor margins is difficult with naked eyes, and positive surgical margin (PSM) occurs when cancer cells are present at the edges of a resected tumor. Negative surgical margin (NSM) is associated with low cancer recurrence rate and improved survival. PSM occurs in up to 70% of tumor surgeries, leading to further surgeries, delays in additional therapies, increased healthcare costs, and stress on patients and surgeons. Image-guided surgery can provide live visual cues for doctors performing surgical resection of tumors. 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA) is the only fluorescent dye approved by the FDA for live visualization of margins during brain cancer surgery, but its utility is compromised due to side effects such as nerve and liver damage, hyperthermia, and even death. This work proposes using two novel bionanodots synthesized from natural sources: DNA-biodots synthesized from DNA and Red emissive Carbon Quantum Dots (CQD) synthesized from medicinal plants. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) overexpress CD44, a cell surface glycoprotein associated with increased cell proliferation, angiogenesis, and invasion in multiple cancers. Hyaluronan (HA) is used to coat nanocarriers for increased cancer cell targeting and enhanced retention time in tumor tissue. In vitro uptake and extensive in vivo studies will be conducted to evaluate the success of image-guided surgery in breast and ovarian cancer models.