1. Bridging the gap between diagnostics and therapeutics
1. How conventional medicine is practiced in terms of diagnostics and therapeutics
2. The consequences of separating diagnostics and therapeutics
3. A new approach – "theragnostics" (or "theranostics")
2. Examples of current theragnostic systems
1. Example: Rituxan ("Rituximab)(an example of not using diagnostics to guide the therapy)
2. Example 1: Herceptin ("terastuzumab")
3. Example 2: Iressa ("Gefitinib)
3. How theragnostics relates to Molecular Imaging
1. Conventional imaging is not very specific
2. Types of In-vivo Imaging
1. X-rays, CAT (Computed Axial Tomography) scans
2. MRI (magnetic Resonance Imaging)
3. PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scans
3. "Molecular Imaging"
4. Engineering nanomedical systems for simultaneous molecular imaging
1. Using nanomedical cores for MRI contrast agents
2. Difficulties in using PET probes for nanomedical devices
3. Using cell-specific probes for molecular imaging of nanomedical devices
4. Breaking the "diffraction limit" – nano-level imaging
5. Theragnostic nanomedical devices
1. Using nanomedical devices to guide separate therapeutic device
2. When might we want to combine diagnostics and therapeutics?

• BJJ Abdullah, Molecular imaging: spawning a new melting-pot for biomedical imaging Biomed Imaging Interv J 2006; 2(4):e28 pages 1-7.
• Chul Ahn, Pharmacogenomics in Drug Discovery and Development, Genomics & Informatics Vol. 5(2) 41-45, 2007
• Eric Betzig, George H. Patterson, Rachid Sougrat, O. Wolf Lindwasser, Scott Olenych, Juan S. Bonifacino, Michael W. Davidson, Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz, Harald F. Hess Imaging Intracellular Fluorescent Proteins at Nanometer Resolution SCIENCE VOL 313: 1642-1645, 2006

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• James Leary (2007), "BME 695N Lecture 4: Designing "Theragnostic" Systems," https://nanohub.org/resources/3109.

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1. biomedical engineering
2. course lecture
3. nanomedicine
4. theragnostics