Inorganic nanozymes acting as therapeutic and contrast agents in MRI and PET scanning

The CIC biomaGUNE Molecular and Functional Biomarkers group has developed a rapid, cost-effective, synthetic, microwave method for producing ultra-small manganese ferrite nanoparticles that act as advanced, multimodal contrast agents in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET); they also have intracellular catalytic activity as a result of which an unprecedented reduction in tumor growth can be induced, for materials of this type, in a preclinical model of breast cancer. The results of this research, published by the journal Small, demonstrate that these nanoparticles have robust characteristics for nanobiotechnological applications.