German University PhD Thesis on TLD1433 Mechanism of Action Avenish Chetri of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena has collaborated with the McFarland Research Group for several years. He will be defending a PhD dissertation entitled:
Investigating the Light-Induced Dynamics of a Phototoxic Ru (II)-based Photosensitizer, TLD1433 in Biologically Relevant Environments
His most recent collaboration with the McFarland Research Group (along with his dissertation supervisor - Dr. Benjamin Dietzek-Ivani) was in February 2023.
Using Biological Photophysics to Map the Excited-State Topology of Molecular Photosensitizers for Photodynamic Therapy
Avinash Chettri, Tingxiang Yang, Houston D. Cole, Ge Shi, Dr. Colin G. Cameron, Prof.Dr. Sherri A. McFarland, Prof.Dr. Benjamin Dietzek-Ivani
Abstract
This study employs TLD1433, a RuII-based photodynamic therapy (PDT) agent in human clinical trials, as a benchmark to establish protocols for studying the excited-state dynamics of photosensitizers (PSs) in cellulo, in the local environment provided by human cancer cells. Very little is known about the excited-state properties of any PS in live cells, and for TLD1433, it is terra incognita. This contribution targets a general problem in phototherapy, which is how to interrogate the light-triggered, function-determining processes of the PSs in the relevant biological environment, and establishes methodological advances to study the ultrafast photoinduced processes for TLD1433 when taken up by MCF7 cells. We generalize the methodological developments and results in terms of molecular physics by applying them to TLD1433’s analogue TLD1633, making this study a benchmark to investigate the excited-state dynamics of phototoxic compounds in the complex biological environment.