Thrombosis Targeted MRI Contrast Agent

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal addresses the need for a minimally invasive diagnostic assay for the evaluation of pathological blood clots in patients suspected of developing intravascular blood clots that may manifest themselves as pulmonary embolism (PE), deep vein thrombosis (DVT) or thrombotic stroke. Indeed, thrombosis (the formation of blood clots) remains the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States. Luna Innovations proposes to develop a trimetasphere based magnetic resonance imaging contrast agent for site directed thrombosis imaging. Luna Innovations will manufacture an appropriate trimetasphere nanomaterial (such as like Gd2ScN@C80) and functionalize it in preparation for conjugation to a monoclonal antibody with the highest specificity to a neo-epitope on the blood clot. Following this the trimetasphere-antibody complex will be evaluated in vitro experiments for the capability of the complex to target, image and destroy the blood clot. In phase I, Luna will demonstrate the ability of this complex to perform this task and optimize the complex for in vivo diagnostic imaging for phase II