HUGHES, JOSHUA,GRAHAM (2024) Biological and Photophysical Analysis of Novel Diphenylacetylene Photosensitisers for the treatment of Oral Epithelial Dysplasia. Doctoral thesis, Durham University.
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Abstract
Oral cancer is the sixth most common cancer in the world. Diagnosis often occurs at the later stages of disease progression, which is a large contributing factor to the survival rate being below 50% over a five-year period. The conventional method of treatment surgery and radiotherapy, is highly invasive with large implications to patient’s quality of life. Photosensitisers provide a highly-targeted, non-invasive, treatment for cancerous and pre-cancerous lesions, either as an alternative to, or in combination with established procedures. A novel class of donor-acceptor diphenylacetylene photosensitisers have been developed by LightOx. The varied structure of the donor and accepting groups have implications on lipophilicity, induced charge-transfer and subsequent cellular localisation and phototoxicity. Compounds with small charge-transfer characteristics, combined with heavy-atoms, such as the sulfur atom in thiophene groups proved to be the most potent. Futhermore, non-polar, lipophilic environments were optimal to induce phototoxicity for this class of photosensitisers. Thus compounds with log > 4 were the most potent, localising to lipid droplets, lysosomes, and membranes in the peri-nuclear region. Additionally, the compounds were studied for multi-photon FLIM, FluoRaman, and photodynamic diagnostic capabilities.
Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
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Award: | Doctor of Philosophy |
Faculty and Department: | Faculty of Science > Physics, Department of |
Thesis Date: | 2024 |
Copyright: | Copyright of this thesis is held by the author |
Deposited On: | 04 Jun 2024 12:29 |