Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence for Translational Diagnostics

The **Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence for Translational Diagnostics** (**CCNE-TD**), which forms the third cycle CCNE Program at Stanford University, is a consortium that has three highly synchronized Projects and three Cores. Since its initial funding in May 2006, our CCNE program has matured substantially into a strong multidisciplinary program with expertise and infrastructure to support the growing field of cancer nanomedicine. **Dr. [Sanjiv Sam Gambhir, MD, PhD](https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/sanjiv-gambhir) (PI/PD)** is the Chairman of the Department of Radiology at Stanford and is an expert in Molecular Imaging, Radiology and Bioengineering. **[Dr. Shan X. Wang, PhD](https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/shan-wang) (co-PI)** is a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering as well as Electrical engineering at Stanford. He has spent the major portion of his career focused on magneto nanobio-sensing. **[Dr. Demir Akin, DVM, PhD](https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/demir-akin) (Deputy Director)**, is an interdisciplinary scientist and a well-known Nanomedicine expert has been the Deputy Director of the Stanford CCNE Program and he continues with this responsibility in the CCNE-TD Program. Together, Drs. Gambhir, Wang and Akin provide an enormous breadth of experience ranging from fundamental nanoscience and engineering, to pre-clinical imaging, and on to translation to clinical applications of molecular imaging and cancer nanodiagnostics. The Center is composed of a highly interdisciplinary team of scientists whose expertise areas are highly synergistic and have a long collaboration history that extends to the first cycle of the NCI’s CCNE Program. Defining it broadly, the CCNE-TD will develop and clinically translate cancer diagnostics and imaging technologies. More specifically, it has **two scientific thematic focus areas**: i) predicting and monitoring cancer therapy response in lung cancer and ii) merging of nano-based in vitro and in vivo diagnostics strategies as well as nano-based imaging for earlier cancer detection and prognostication for prostate cancer. Our [Projects (P)](https://med.stanford.edu/ccne/ccne-td/projects.html) and [Cores (C)](https://med.stanford.edu/ccne/ccne-td/resources.html) are as follows: **P1 (Lead: [Jianghong Rao, PhD](https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/jianghong-rao))** focuses on the development of novel cancer triggered self-assembling and disassembling nanoparticles for photoacoustic and PET-MRI visualization of tumors, **P2 (Lead: [Shan X. Wang, PhD](https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/shan-wang))** focuses on the use of magneto-nanotechnology for blood proteomics, single cell sorting and comprehensive analyses. **P3 (Lead: [Sanjiv Sam Gambhir, MD, PhD](https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/sanjiv-gambhir))** focuses on molecular imaging of prostate cancer with photoacoustics smart nanoparticles that will be made by Project 1, and monitoring response to anti-lung cancer therapy using imaging and magneto-nanosensors. **C1 (Lead: [Demir Akin, DVM, PhD](https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/demir-akin))** is the Administration Core and facilitate progress towards our milestones, **C2 (Lead: [Robert Sinclair, PhD](https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/bob-sinclair))** provides resources for nano characterization and nano fabrication, **C3 (Lead: [Alice Fan, MD](https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/alice-fan))** facilitates clinical translation by linking our nanotechnologies to existing patient samples and ongoing as well as new clinical trials.