Infrared Light Technology May Open New Opportunities to Image Cancer, Tay Sachs Disease

A technique employing near-infrared light enables scientists to look deeper into the workings of cells, potentially creating a new tool in the fight against cancer and many other diseases.

University of Central Florida (UCF; Orlando, USA) chemists, led by Prof. Kevin Belfield, used near infrared light and fluorescent dye to take pictures of cells and tumors deep within tissue. The probes specifically target lysosomes, which have been linked to a variety of diseases, including types of mental illnesses and cancers.The probes can be adapted to look for specific proteins found in tumors, which means they someday may help physicians diagnose and potentially treat tumors. "This is a game-changer,” Prof. Belfield said. "Until now, there was no real way to study lysosomes because existing techniques have severe limitations. But the probe we developed is stable, which allows for longer periods of imaging.”

Conventional imaging probes work for only a few minutes. They cannot penetrate deep tissue, are sensitive to pH levels, and have poor water solubility. Prof. Belfield's technique jumps over those hurdles by using near-infrared light. Once researchers identified the correct light frequency, they took images of lysosomes for hours. The new approach will allow researchers to see lysosomes at work and to piece together their role in diseases such as cancer and Tay-Sachs, a genetic disorder from which children typically die by age four.

"We've come up with something that should make a huge difference in finding answers to some very complicated conditions,” Prof. Belfield concluded.

The study's findings, which include comparisons to the only two existing probes on the market today, were published in the August 2010 issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

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