Magnetic Nanoparticles: From Fabrication to Medical Application

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Contents of the Talk

Due to their unique magnetic properties, magnetic nanoparticles are increasingly being used in medicine and medical engineering for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. For example, the magnetic fields emitted by these particles can be used for medical imaging in magnetic particle imaging or magnetic resonance imaging. This magnetic field can also be used to mechanically manipulate the particles as drug carriers in magnetic drug targeting, directing them magnetically to a target site in the body to release and accumulate a drug there. The remagnetization losses of the particles that occur in an alternating magnetic field cause the particles to heat up. This effect can be utilized, for example, in magnetic hyperthermia to destroy tumors minimally invasive by applying targeted heat.

All of these applications require particles with magnetic properties optimized for that specific application in order to achieve the maximum possible effect in diagnostics and therapy. This presentation will demonstrate the various options available for manufacturing magnetic nanoparticles with tailored magnetic properties. Furthermore, the presentation will address how these particles must be prepared for the use in the body to prevent unwanted side effects and risks to patients caused by the nanomaterial. Subsequently, based on results from our own recent research, the presentation will demonstrate the existing possibilities for the use of magnetic nanoparticles in medicine and the challenges that still need to be overcome in the future. In conclusion, as an outlook, the concept for the theranostic use of such particles will be presented, in which these particles can be used to pursue both diagnostic and therapeutic goals simultaneously.

Short CV

Prof. Silvio Dutz was born in 1972 in Neuhaus, Germany. In 2002, he graduated from Jena University of Applied Sciences with a degree in biomedical engineering (Dipl.-Ing). In 2007, he received his doctorate in materials science from the University Bergakademie Freiberg with a thesis on the development of magnetic nanoparticles for hyperthermia. After a postdoctoral stay in the Häfeli lab at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, in 2009/2010, he founded his own research group on the development and application of magnetic nanoparticles for medicine at the Technische Universität Ilmenau and became a professor of biomedical engineering in 2017 there. He is now a professor of biomedical engineering at Zwickau University of Applied Sciences since 2023. With a background in Materials Science, Biomedical Engineering, and Electronics his current research interests focus on synthesis, characterization, and application of magnetic nanoparticles for medical applications as well as instrumentation for these techniques, especially magnetic hyperthermia, magnetic drug targeting, and magnetic particle imaging.