A heavy-metal-free luminescent quantum dot (QD) based on doped zinc sulfide (ZnS), conjugated with a cancer-targeting ligand, folic acid (FA), is presented as a promising bio-friendly system for targeted cancer imaging. Doped QDs were prepared by a simple aqueous method at room temperature. X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy studies showed the formation of monodisperse QDs of average size ∼4 nm with cubic (sphalerite) crystal structure. Doping of the QDs with metals (Al3+), transition metals (Cu+, Mn2+) and halides (F−) resulted in multi-color emission with dopant-specific color tunability ranging from blue (480 nm) to red (622 nm). Luminescent centers in doped QDs could be excited using bio-friendly visible light >400 nm by directly populating the dopant centers, leading to bright emission. The cytotoxicity of bare and FA conjugated QDs was tested in vitro using normal lung fibroblast cell line (L929), folate-receptor-positive (FR+) nasopharyngeal epidermoid carcinoma cell line (KB), and FR-negative (FR−) lung cancer cell line (A549). Both bare and FA-conjugated ZnS QDs elicited no apparent toxicity even at high concentrations of ∼100 µM and 48 h of incubation. In contrast, CdS QDs prepared under identical conditions showed relatively high toxicity even at low concentrations of ∼0.1 µM and 24 h of incubation. Interaction of FA–QDs with different cell lines showed highly specific attachment of QDs in the FR+ cancer cell line, leaving others unaffected. The bright and stable luminescence of the QDs could be used to image both single cancer cells and colonies of cancer cells without affecting their metabolic activity and morphology. Thus, this study presents, for the first time, the use of non-toxic, Cd-, Te-, Se-, Pb- and Hg-free luminescent QDs for targeted cancer imaging.

As the pace of clinical magnetic resonance (MR) procedures grows, the need for an MR scanner software platform on which developers can rapidly prototype, valiclate, and produce product applications becomes paramount. A software architecture has been developed for a commercial MR scanner that employs state of the art software technologies including Java, C++, DICOM, XML, and so forth. This system permits graphical (drag and drop) assembly of applications built on simple processing building blocks, including pulse sequences, a user interface, reconstruction and postprocessing, and database control. The application developer (researcher or commercial) can assemble these building blocks to create custom applications. The developer can also write source code directly to create new building blocks and add these to the collection of components, which can be distributed worldwide over the internet. The application software and its components are developed in Java, which assures platform portability across any host computer that supports a Java Virtual Machine. The downloaded executable portion of the application is executed in compiled C++ code, which assures mission-critical real-time execution during fast MR acquisition and data processing on dedicated embedded hardware that supports C or C++. This combination permits flexible and rapid MR application development across virtually any combination of computer configurations and operating systems, and yet it allows for very high performance execution on actual scanner hardware. Applications, including prescan, are inherently real-time enabled and can be aggregated and customized to form "superapplications," wherein one or more applications work with another to accomplish the clinical objective with a very high transition speed between applications. (C) 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.