Seeing Your Nanoparticles in Action: Excitement and Empowerment in Nanoscale Imaging

One of the most fulfilling experiences at CytoViva, Inc is the excitement exhibited by nanoparticle research labs the first time they observe their nanoparticle samples during a CytoViva microscope installation or onsite demonstration.

It is an unfortunate reality that most nanoparticle researchers conduct their work without access to an effective benchtop microscope to quickly observe their nanoparticle samples. While electron microscopy can provide valuable insights, the required sample preparation and limited accessibility may reduce its practicality for routine analysis. The lack of a rapid and real-time benchtop imaging tool can delay progress and limit the development of nanoparticles for applications such as biosensors, drug delivery vectors and related research initiatives.

CytoViva, Inc ’s Enhanced Darkfield Hyperspectral Microscope creates excitement in nano-research labs because it provides students, post docs and principal investigators with a rapid, label-free method for imaging and characterizing nanoparticles right from their benchtop. Within less than a minute from mounting the sample on a slide, researchers can observe nanoparticles to determine their homogeneity in solution or how effectively they are targeting cells, tissue or other environments. These images also offer insights into sample preparation and opportunities for optimizing samples for specific applications.

CytoViva’s patented enhanced darkfield microscope optics were specifically designed to create high signal-to-noise optical images, enabling observation of nanoparticles well below 100nm. This can include imaging nanoparticles in cells, tissue and other matrixes. When a hyperspectral image is captured of these samples, each nanoscale pixel contains the spectral response of that pixel’s spatial area. This spectral data can enable spectral mapping of particles in different environments along with spectral characterization of drug loads or other functional groups added to the nanoparticles.

The images in figures 1-4 below demonstrate the power of CytoViva’s Hyperspectral Microscopy to enable rapid insight on nanoparticle studies. In both examples, AuNPs and lipid nanoparticles (respectively), have been exposed to macrophage cells. The uptake of the nanoparticles in figure 1 and figure 3 is obvious based on the observation of nanoparticle cell samples, when compared to the negative control cells shown in figure 2 and figure 4.?To further validate the presence of the nanoparticles in the cells, figure 5 and figure 6 illustrate the spectral differences of the nanoparticles measured in the cell structure as opposed to the control cells.

The ability to image nanoparticles in their target environment, right from the research benchtop, is not only an exciting development for nano-research labs, it is a very powerful method for validating and optimizing the nanoparticle development process. If you would like to learn more about CytoViva’s Hyperspectral Microscopy and how it can support your nano-research lab, you can visit our website at www.cytoviva.com or contact us at [email protected]. We will be pleased to discuss your research efforts to help you learn how CytoViva can advance your efforts.??

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