Novel optical dental imaging technology utilizing targeted upconversion nanoparticles for noninvasive detection of dental caries

PROJECT SUMMARY Dental caries are the most prevalent chronic disease worldwideIn factin most industrialized countries nearlyof the adult population andof school aged children are affectedDetection of non cavitated lesions which progress slowly enable clinicians to use non operative preventive strategies to arrest their growthMoreovercurrent techniques suffer from high false positive detection ratesIn this proposalACIS LLC will develop a novel optical dental imaging technology that utilizes targeted upconversion nanoparticles for noninvasive detection of dental caries and assess its ability to improve the limit of detectioni esensitivityof dental caries and the specificityi edecrease false positive detection ratescompared to currently marketed technologyUpconversion materials are excited with nonvisiblenm light which has deep tissue penetration and emit light in the visible regionThis upconversion process greatly reduces background autofluorescence of biological samples resulting in high signal to noise ratios to enhance the sensitivity of detectionThis project has two specific aims thatAimAssess the limit of dental caries detection using a peptide targeted UCNP that adheres to hydroxyapatite in extracted human tooth specimenand AimAssess the limit of dental caries detection of a peptide targeted UCNP that adheres to SMutans in cultured bacteria and extracted tooth specimen with carriesPending a successful outcome of this Phase I grant applicationwe will put forward a Phase II grant application involving device developmentacute and chronic in vivo toxicity of the UCNPsand in vivo studies for detection of dental caries in animals pertinent for translation to human trials Project Narrative The goal of this proposal is to develop novel noninvasive optical dental imaging techniques using upconversion nanoparticles to both improve the sensitivity and specificity of early dental caries detectionIf successfulthis new techniquescoupled with a novel nanomaterialwill readily translate to the clinic and lead to better treatment outcomes