Chemistry Team devlops probes that may be useful to study Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases

Two-photon fluorescence microscopy imaging of cellular oxidative stress using profluorescent nitroxides

Oxidative stress is thought to play a key role in a number of conditions, cardiovascular aging, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s disease. With the increasing prevalence of these diseases, there are few methods to monitor molecular components that cause oxidative stress in vivo.  Prof. Kevin D. Belfield and his team developed a series of molecular probes that detect key reactive species in the oxidative stress process and “light up” in the presence of oxidative stress species. Significantly, they report the first demonstration of oxidative stress visualization of these reactive species by two-photon fluorescence imaging, providing a promising path for translation of these findings for in vivo oxidative stress imaging. The research, led by Prof. Kevin D. Belfield, UCF Chemistry chair, was published recently in the Journal of the American Chemical Society and involved two students in the Chemistry PhD program (Hyo-Yang Ahn, graduated in August 2011 and Bosung Kim, a current student).

Full reference:
Ahn, H.-Y.; Fairfull-Smith, K. E.; Morrow, B. J.; Lussini, V.; Kim, B.; Bondar, M. V.; Bottle, S. E.; Belfield, K. D. “Two-photon fluorescence microscopy imaging of cellular oxidative stress using profluorescent nitroxides” Journal of the American Chemical Society 2012, 134, 4721-4730.

Dr. Belfield’s research interests are in multiphoton absorbing materials, supramolecular materials, two-photon photochemistry, two-photon 3D optical data storage, multiphoton fluorescent probes and multiphoton bioimaging for early tumor detection and image guided surgery, photodynamic therapy agents, nanostructured functional organic and polymeric materials, and photochromic materials. His research has been funded by NSF, NIH, US Civilian Research & Development Foundation, Research Corporation, The Petroleum Research Fund, AFOSR, US Army, DARPA, and industry.



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