澳大新語 • 2022 UMAGAZINE 26 62 學術研究 • ACADEMIC RESEARCH 劉子銘是澳大健康科學學院副教授，擁有台灣大學光電工程學博士學位，研究聚焦生命科學，使用超快鐳射技術 探索納米光子學研究癌症生物學，以及創造光的新診斷和治療用途。 Liu Tzu-Ming is an associate professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at UM. He holds a PhD in optoelectronic engineering from the University of Taiwan. His studies focus on life sciences, the use of ultrafast laser technology to explore of nanophotonics to study cancer biology, and the development of new diagnostic and therapeutic applications of light. 「學術研究」為投稿欄目，內容僅代表作者個人意見。 Articles in the Academic Research column were submitted by UM scholars. The views expressed are solely those of the author(s). Photodynamic Therapy for Cancer Furthermore, PSMA nanoparticles can be used to destroy solid tumours in PDT. Our team injected PSMA nanoparticles loaded with the YI-1 dye into a group of laboratory mice with bladder cancer. After that, we treated them through PDT with an 808 nm laser or a 660 nm laser for 30 minutes every five days. After two rounds of treatment, the tumours in the mice were significantly reduced in size, especially in those treated with the 808 nm laser, with their cancer cell activities decreasing by more than 50 per cent. At the same time, the tumours in the control group, which were not treated with PSMA nanoparticles, continued to grow and occupied almost the entire bladder by Day 20. Autopsy of the mice revealed that no significant damage or inflammation was found in their hearts, livers, spleens, lungs, or kidneys. This indicates that the PSMA nanoparticles loaded with the dye YI-1 do not produce systemic toxicity, and thus can be an effective and reliable photosensitiser. To test the effectiveness of the PSMA particles for medical imaging, our team loaded each of three dyes onto PSMA particles and injected them into mice with MB49 bladder cancer cells. Using single photon emission tomography, we found that after 24 hours, all three dyes emitted a fluorescent signal indicating the locations of the tumours. Therefore, we believe that organic NIR dyes with different intensity properties could replace some of the currently used low molecular weight dyes, which will lead to new immunofluorescent staining techniques. Our team also performed in vitro and in vivo multiphoton laser scans on mice using PSMA nanoparticles with the dye as a contrast agent. The results showed that PSMA nanoparticles are highly biocompatible, have low hydrophobicity, and do not need to cross the cell membrane (called cytokinesis) to enter mouse cells and emit fluorescent signals. We also injected PSMA nanoparticles into the tail vein of mice and found that the particles could flow through the bloodstream to the blood vessels in the ears of the mice. This shows that PSMA nanoparticles can be used as multiphoton contrast agents for medical imaging of deep tissue. Towards Better Chemotherapy Through these studies, our team has shown that PSMA nanoparticles can be loaded with a variety of organic NIR dyes for PDT and medical imaging. This discovery offers a new perspective on the use of organic optoelectronic materials for biomedical therapeutic applications and has been published in the Journal of Nanobiotechnology. We believe that such nanoparticles could also be loaded with additional drugs for cancer chemotherapy to reduce the required dose of chemotherapy. Our research team will continue to work in this direction to further identify the huge potential of NIR organic molecules. PSMA納米粒子可以裝載各種近紅外有機染料 PSMA nanoparticles can be loaded with a variety of organic NIR dyes
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