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ABSTRACT For _in vivo_ imaging, the short-wavelength infrared region (SWIR; 1,000–2,000 nm) provides several advantages over the visible and near-infrared regions: general lack of
autofluorescence, low light absorption by blood and tissue, and reduced scattering. However, the lack of versatile and functional SWIR emitters has prevented the general adoption of SWIR
imaging by the biomedical research community. Here, we introduce a class of high-quality SWIR-emissive indium-arsenide-based quantum dots that are readily modifiable for various functional
imaging applications, and that exhibit narrow and size-tunable emission and a dramatically higher emission quantum yield than previously described SWIR probes. To demonstrate the
unprecedented combination of deep penetration, high spatial resolution, multicolour imaging and fast acquisition speed afforded by the SWIR quantum dots, we quantified, in mice, the
metabolic turnover rates of lipoproteins in several organs simultaneously and in real time as well as heartbeat and breathing rates in awake and unrestrained animals, and generated detailed
three-dimensional quantitative flow maps of the mouse brain vasculature. Access through your institution Buy or subscribe This is a preview of subscription content, access via your
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institutional subscriptions * Read our FAQs * Contact customer support SIMILAR CONTENT BEING VIEWED BY OTHERS IN VIVO NON-INVASIVE CONFOCAL FLUORESCENCE IMAGING BEYOND 1,700 NM USING
SUPERCONDUCTING NANOWIRE SINGLE-PHOTON DETECTORS Article 23 May 2022 FAST TIME-DOMAIN DIFFUSE CORRELATION SPECTROSCOPY WITH SUPERCONDUCTING NANOWIRE SINGLE-PHOTON DETECTOR: SYSTEM VALIDATION
AND IN VIVO RESULTS Article Open access 24 July 2023 SILICON-ROSINDOLIZINE FLUOROPHORES WITH SHORTWAVE INFRARED ABSORPTION AND EMISSION PROFILES ENABLE IN VIVO FLUORESCENCE IMAGING Article
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This work received support from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) in part through 5-U54-CA151884 (M.G.B.), P01-CA080124 (R.K.J. and D.Fukumura), R35 CA197743, P50 CA165962 and
R01-CA126642 (R.K.J.), R01-CA096915 (D.Fukumura), the NIH funded Laser Biomedical Research Center through 4-P41-EB015871-30 (M.G.B.), and the US National Cancer Institute/Federal Share
Proton Beam Program Income (R.K.J.); the US National Foundation for Cancer Research (R.K.J.), and the Warshaw Institute for Pancreatic Cancer Research and Massachusetts General Hospital
Executive Committee on Research (D.Fukumura); the US Army Research Office through the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies (W911NF-13-D-0001; J.A.C., O.C., H.W., G.W.H. and M.G.B.); the US
Department of Defence through DoD W81XWH-10-1-0016 (R.K.J.); and the US National Science Foundation (NSF) through ECCS-1449291 (D.Franke and M.G.B.). This work was supported as part of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Center for Excitonics, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy
Sciences under Award Number DE-SC0001088 (T.S.B. and M.W.B.W.). O.T.B. is supported by an European Molecular Biology Organization long-term fellowship. A.B. is supported by a Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft Research Fellowship (BA 4925/1-1). D.Franke is supported by a fellowship of the Evonik Stiftung and fellowship of the Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds. This research was
conducted with government support under and awarded by the US Department of Defence, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, National Defence Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship 32
CFR 168a (J.A.C.). J.H. is supported by a grant from the Fondation Leducq—Triglyceride Metabolism in Obesity and Cardiovascular Disease. L.R. received a Mildred Scheel Fellowship (Deutsche
Krebshilfe). D.K.H., D.M.M., I.C. and O.B.A. were supported by NSF GRFP fellowships. J.K. was supported by fellowships from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and the SolidarImmun
Foundation. C.J.R. and P.T.C.S. acknowledge support from NIH 4-P41-EB015871-30, DP3-DK101024 01, 1-U01-NS090438-01, 1-R01-EY017656 -0, 6A1, 1-R01-HL121386-01A1, the Biosym IRG of
Singapore–MIT Alliance Research and Technology Center, the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research Bridge Initiative, Hamamatsu Inc., and the Samsung GRO program. We thank S. Roberge
and P. Huang for technical assistance. We also thank QDVision for providing an InAs–CdZnS QD sample (InAs-016) used in this study. We are grateful to Gökhan Hotamisligil for critical
discussion and continuing support. AUTHOR INFORMATION Author notes * Lars Riedemann, Mark W. B. Wilson, Ou Chen, Gyu Weon Hwang & Jonas Kloepper Present address: †Present addresses:
Neurology Clinic and National Center for Tumor Diseases, University Hospital Heidelberg, and Clinical Cooperation Unit Neuro-Oncology, German Cancer Consortium, German Cancer Research
Center, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany (L.R.); Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto, 80 Saint George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H6, Canada (M.W.B.W.); Department of Chemistry, Brown
University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912, USA (O.C.); Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Seoul 02792, Republic of Korea (G.W.H.); Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois,
Département de Médecine Interne, CHUV-UNIL, Rue du Bugnon 46, 1011 Lausanne, Switzerland (J.K.)., * Oliver T. Bruns and Thomas S. Bischof: These authors contributed equally to this work.
AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS * Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, 02139, Massachusetts, USA. Oliver T. Bruns, Thomas S. Bischof,
Daniel K. Harris, Daniel Franke, Jessica A. Carr, Mark W. B. Wilson, Ou Chen, He Wei, Gyu Weon Hwang, Daniel M. Montana, Igor Coropceanu, Odin B. Achorn & Moungi G. Bawendi * Department
of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Massachusetts, Cambridge, 02139,, USA. Daniel K. Harris, Gyu Weon Hwang & Daniel M.
Montana * Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Massachusetts, Cambridge, 02139,, USA. Yanxiang Shi & Klavs F. Jensen *
Edwin L. Steele Laboratories for Tumor Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, 100 Blossom Street, Cox-7, Massachusetts, Boston, 02114,, USA. Lars Riedemann,
Jonas Kloepper, Dai Fukumura & Rakesh K. Jain * Department of Genetics and Complex Diseases and Sabri Ülker Center, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 665 Huntington Avenue,
Massachusetts, Boston, 02115,, USA. Alexander Bartelt * Raytheon Vision Systems, Goleta, 93117,, California, USA. Frank B. Jaworski * Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA. Christopher J. Rowlands & Peter T. C. So * Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Cell Biology, University Medical Center
Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martinistrasse 52, Hamburg, 20246, Germany. Joerg Heeren * Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139,
USA. Peter T. C. So Authors * Oliver T. Bruns View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Thomas S. Bischof View author publications You can also
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inPubMed Google Scholar * Dai Fukumura View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Klavs F. Jensen View author publications You can also search for
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can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar CONTRIBUTIONS O.T.B., T.S.B., D.K.H., D.Franke, L.R., A.B., F.B.J., J.A.C., M.W.B.W., O.C., H.W., G.W.H., D.M.M., I.C., O.B.A. and
J.K. performed the experiments. O.T.B, T.S.B., Y.S. and C.J.R. analysed the data, O.T.B., T.S.B. and M.G.B. wrote the paper and were assisted by D.Franke, A.B. and R.K.J. J.H., P.T.C.S,
D.Fukumura, K.F.J. and R.K.J. provided guidance on the study design. J.H. provided lipid samples. All authors reviewed and edited the manuscript. CORRESPONDING AUTHORS Correspondence to
Oliver T. Bruns, Thomas S. Bischof or Moungi G. Bawendi. ETHICS DECLARATIONS COMPETING INTERESTS The authors declare no competing financial interests. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION SUPPLEMENTARY
INFORMATION Supplementary figures and video captions. (PDF 6792 kb) SUPPLEMENTARY VIDEO 1 Five InAs core-shell quantum dot samples with distinct emission spectra, dissolved in hexanes.
Please refer to the Supplementary Information file for the full description. (MOV 2521 kb) SUPPLEMENTARY VIDEO 2 SWIR emission from a mouse with activated brown adipose tissue. Please refer
to the Supplementary Information file for the full description. (MOV 1309 kb) SUPPLEMENTARY VIDEO 3 Biodistribution of PEGylated SWIR QDs (1,200 nm emission) in a mouse. Please refer to the
Supplementary Information file for the full description. (MOV 5674 kb) SUPPLEMENTARY VIDEO 4 Same as Supplementary Video 3, after reaching equilibrium. Please refer to the Supplementary
Information file for the full description. (MOV 4812 kb) SUPPLEMENTARY VIDEO 5 Awake mouse injected with PEGylated QDs emitting at 1,080 nm. Please refer to the Supplementary Information
file for the full description. (MOV 4035 kb) SUPPLEMENTARY VIDEO 6 Imaging of the brain of a mouse with glioblastoma multiforme through a cranial window, during injection of PEGylated QDs.
Please refer to the Supplementary Information file for the full description. (MOV 29665 kb) SUPPLEMENTARY VIDEO 7 High-speed intravital SWIR microscopy in the healthy hemisphere of a
mouse's brain. Please refer to the Supplementary Information file for the full description. (MOV 8493 kb) SUPPLEMENTARY VIDEO 8 High-speed intravital SWIR microscopy of the tumour
margin of the mouse shown in Supplementary Video 7. Please refer to the Supplementary Information file for the full description. (MOV 8305 kb) SUPPLEMENTARY VIDEO 9 Z-stack images of blood
flow in the brain of a mouse. Please refer to the Supplementary Information file for the full description. (AVI 2350 kb) SUPPLEMENTARY VIDEO 10 Z-resolved imaging of blood flow in the brain
of a mouse. Please refer to the Supplementary Information file for the full description. (MOV 10131 kb) SUPPLEMENTARY VIDEO 11 Z-resolved imaging of blood flow in the brain of a mouse.
Please refer to the Supplementary Information file for the full description. (MOV 7114 kb) SUPPLEMENTARY VIDEO 12 Z-resolved imaging of blood flow in the brain of a mouse. Please refer to
the Supplementary Information file for the full description. (AVI 1801 kb) RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Bruns, O., Bischof, T.,
Harris, D. _et al._ Next-generation _in vivo_ optical imaging with short-wave infrared quantum dots. _Nat Biomed Eng_ 1, 0056 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-017-0056 Download
citation * Received: 26 October 2016 * Accepted: 02 March 2017 * Published: 10 April 2017 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-017-0056 SHARE THIS ARTICLE Anyone you share the following
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