Chip-Scale Intraoperative Optical Navigation with Immunotargeted Upconverting Nanoparticles

The project addresses the inability of current intraoperative imaging methods to achieve high sensitivity on tissue surface and at depth, and their bulkiness. It proposes a new imaging strategy integrating nanotechnology to redesign upconverting nanoparticles as safe optical probes, protein engineering to produce antibodies that selectively target probes to tumors, and detector engineering to build an ultrathin imaging chip directly integrated into surgical instrumentation. The goal is real-time, highly sensitive intraoperative imaging of cancer cells, both on the surface and at depth, to identify all residual disease.