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1064-PP08-07

Carbon Nanospheres for Biomedical Applications Courtney Styres1, Inessa Stanishevskaya1, Tahseen Nasti1, Nabiha Yusuf1, Maaike Everts1, Helene Yockell-Lelievre2, and Andrei Stanishevsky1 1 University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, 35294 2 University Laval, Quebec, G1K 7P4, Canada ABSTRACT Carbon and Au/carbon core/shell spherical nanoparticles with the diameters in the range from 10 to 120 nm have been prepared using the decomposition of monosaccharides under hydrothermal conditions with or without the presence of metal seed particles. The nanoparticles were studied using TEM, FTIR and Raman spectroscopies, and tested for their interaction with several cultured cell lines including healthy and cancerous mouse epidermal keratinocytes, mouse macrophages, human breast cancer cells, mouse fibroblasts, and mouse bone marrowderived dendritic cells. The preliminary results of the cytotoxicity tests with the carbon nanospheres and the activation effect of carbon nanospheres on the dendritic cells are further discussed. INTRODUCTION Carbon nanomaterials come in various forms such as carbon onions, fullerenes, nanodiamonds, nanotubes, and carbon blacks [1,2]. These materials are being extensively explored for numerous biomedical applications in therapy, drug delivery, and biosensoring due to their interesting optical and biochemical properties. Among the available carbon nanomaterials, carbon nanotubes are so far the most widely studied for biomedical applications, and comparatively little is known on the biomedical potential of other nanosized carbon particles. For example, the application of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as delivery systems for nucleic acids, proteins, and drug molecules have been demonstrated [3]. The surface functionalization to induce CNTs fluorescence has been proposed [4] to investigate the intracellular trafficking of CNTs. The optical properties of CNTs make them appealing as biological sensors and imaging contrast agents [5]. However, there are common problems associated with the bioimaging and therapeutic applications of different types of carbon nanoparticles such as their dispersibility in water and physiological fluids, aggregation, and toxicity. It has been recently proposed that spherical carbon nanoparticles may be a superior platform for targeted delivery [6]. The spherical particle’s simple geometry and freedom from entanglement ensures a consistent effective size for the cellular uptake and a uniform surface chemistry. Carbon spherical nanoparticles and core/shell structures can be prepared by the different methods such as CVD, catalytic carbonization of polymers, etc. [7]. The majority of these methods is realized at high temperatures, similarly to those used for carbon nanotube synthesis. The hydrothermal method at mild temperatures below 250 oC has been recently utilized to prepare pure carbon spherical particles [8], as well as several core/shell structures with carbon shell [9,10]. The potential of hydrothermally synthesized carbon particles for biomedical applicati