Robert Sinclair, Yitian Zeng, Steven J. Madsen and Ai L. Koh

Stanford University, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford, USA
Stanford University, Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence, Stanford, USA

We have been engaged in an interdisciplinary research effort on nanotechnology for early cancer detection for thirteen years now. Our role has been to apply advanced nano characterization technologies to reveal details of the structures and methodologies of highest significance. Recent results include:

• Application of electron tomography to identify the location of gold nanorods inside or on extracellular vesicles
• Structure and chemical identity of theranostic gold-ion oxide nanoparticles (GIONs)
• Synthesis and characterization of graphite-encapsulated ferromagnetic iron nanoparticles from ball-milling assisted low-pressure chemical vapor deposition
• In situ environmental TEM studies of the degradation of field-emitting carbon nanotubes in an oxidizing environment
• Raman and electron energy loss spectroscopy of model lithographic gold nanostructures for surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) applications

An overview of these studies will be described.

We gratefully acknowledge support of this work from the Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence for Translational Diagnostics (CCNE-TD) at Stanford University through an award (grant No. U54 CA199075) from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).