Pharmaceutical Materials for Tumor Imaging and Therapy

The progress of medical technology largely depends on the advances of pharmaceutical materials, which can be medicines, nanomaterials, antibodies, enzymes, drug delivery systems, imaging probes, medical apparatus and instruments, and so forth. For example, with molecular imaging probes on hand, physicians can look deeper at a molecular level, which makes them better visualize, characterize and quantify the biological processes taking place in a patient's body. The understanding of molecular imaging arms physicians with early disease detection, and precision medicine for different patients. Although scientists have won a great victory against the diseases, there are still many difficulties that need to be solved, including early diagnosis, control of infectious diseases, oncotherapy, and many others.

Pharmaceutical material is a highly interdisciplinary field. The design, preparation, and clinical translation of pharmaceutical materials requires joint cooperation from pharmacists, material scientists, chemists, biologists, physicians, and engineers. It is very important for scientists to integrate interdisciplinary study. Fluorescence microscopy is a highly specific visualization technology that can view cellular components with the help of fluorescing agents. Even non-biological substances like Calcium ions can be detected with the help of fluorescent dyes and fluorescence microscopy. The integration of fluorescent dyes and microscopy technology makes that true. Similar to drug discovery, clinical translation and disease therapy field, the integration of interdisciplinary study is the base of pharmaceutical material progress.

This Research Topic focuses on the progress in the design, preparation and clinical translation of pharmaceutical materials that are used for tumor imaging and therapy. Original Research articles, Reviews, Mini-Reviews are welcome. Interdisciplinary studies are encouraged. Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:
- Novel pharmaceutical materials design and synthesis;
- Novel pharmaceutical materials with specific radiopharmaceuticals that are used for in vivo or in vitro molecular imaging;
- Novel imaging probes integrated with Fluorescence microscopy for tumor in vitro diagnostics and prognostics;
- Novel pharmaceutical materials for image-guided therapy;
- Novel pharmaceutical materials exploiting the tumor microenvironment for theranostic imaging;
- Novel pharmaceutical materials-based companion theranostics;
- Novel pharmaceutical materials-based biological discovery and biotechnology;
- Novel imaging probes for pharmacokinetics study;
- Pharmacokinetics study of pharmaceutical materials.