Department of Applied Chemistry, Kyung Hee University NBC Seminar Fabrication of Metal Oxide Nanoparticles for Biomedical Imaging and Nanoreactor Applications Speaker : In Su Lee, Ph.D Department of Applied Chemistry, Kyung Hee University   The further development of nanoparticulate MRI contrast agents will require materials that have much more enhanced relaxivity and can operate at much lower concentrations of potentially toxic metal ions. In this context, hollow nanoparticles with interior void spaces are attractive candidates for advanced MRI contrast agents owing to their large water-accessible surface area, which is able to carry high payloads of MR-active magnetic centers, and the ability of the interior void space to take up large amounts of drug molecules. The first part of this seminar will present our recent researche with hollow Mn3O4 nanoparticles (HMON) which show the greatly enhanced relaxivities and drug loading capacity, comparing with those having solid interior. I will discuss the development of a platform protocol for fabricating target-specific multimodality imaging probes based on T1 MRI contrast HMON. Their well-directed characteristics as a target specific imaging agent, including a successful in-vivo T1 contrast MRI diagnosis of cancer tissue, will be demonstrated. I will also present our approach for fabricating gadolinium based paramagnetic contrast agent from layered gadolinium hydroxide (LGdH) compound. In the second part, our research efforts to synthesize hollow and porous silica nanospheres and differentially functionalize their interior and exterior surfaces will be discussed. I will demonstrate the successful employment of seed-mediated growth inside functionalized hollow silica nanospheres for the high-concentration synthesis of surfactant-free Pt nanodendrites with enhanced catalytic performance for oxygen reduction reaction. I will also present the fabrication of a novel nanoreactor framework consisting of a hollow silica shell and a functionalized interior surface with a catalytically active manganese oxide layers and the surface modification method for optimizing its substrate-selective performance in the cyanosilylation reaction. When: 4:15 PM on Apr. 14 (Thu.) Where: Engineering Building 1, E104 Contact: Prof. Jongnam Park (2927) / jnpark@unist.ac.kr School of Nano-Bioscience & Chemical Engineering UNIST