# Human Infrared Vision at Molecular and Cellular Scale

> **NIH NIH DP1** · STANFORD UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $1,099,000

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract. A fundamental problem this DP1 project will address is the inability
of imaging at single molecular or cellular level deep in a living body (animal or human). I plan to enable
in vivo ‘molecular infrared vision’ that detects deep-near-infrared fluorescence for peering into a living
human at centimeters depth for imaging down to the single molecules, cells and micro-vasculatures,
essentially turning a living body transparent. This could greatly empower human vision for biology in the
lab and medicine in the clinic, broadly impacting neuroscience, cancer and cardiovascular disease fields.
A limitation of deep tissue imaging modalities for animal models and human has been the lack of high
resolution and molecular specificity at single cell level. Optical imaging utilizing fluorescence is capable
of high spatial resolution and has revolutionized biological investigations at molecular level. However, a
major pitfall of fluorescence imaging has been superficial depth due to scattering and autofluorescence.
The PI’s lab has pioneered imaging in the 1000-1700 nm window for through-skull single-vessel imaging
with micron-scale resolution. But tissue imaging depth for high resolution is still limited at ~ 4 mm.
This work plans to enable fluorescence imaging in a unique, deep near-infrared (dNIR) window of > 2000
nm to turn biological tissues largely transparent with little scattering, for imaging and tracking of biological
processes at centimeters depth down to single cell level. Based on chemistry and nanoscience expertise
of the PI, this DP1 will innovate chemical synthesis of novel infrared emitting molecular and nanomaterial
fluorophores deep in the near infrared (2100-2400 nm), and innovate new dNIR imaging instrumentation.
The deep-near-infrared imaging will be used to enable human vision to glean biological structures and
processes at the molecular and cellular scale at centimeters depth in a living body with near-zero
endogenous background. It could greatly facilitate basic science and clinical disease diagnostics and
interventions in areas of neuroscience, cancer and cardiovascular diseases. Examples include, (1)
Imaging of single neuron in action under electrical or chemical stimuli at centimeters depth in a brain
without craniotomy in mice and human. (2) Record real-time movies of blood flows at single vessel level
in the brain following stroke or traumatic brain injury; Assess brain damage, repair/treatment effects at
the cellular level. (3) Single-cell tracking during stem cell based therapy. (4) 3D molecular imaging in
living tissues of animal models and human. (5) Molecular imaging of cancer down to single tumor cell
level in vivo. (6) Translation into clinics for sentinel lymph node mapping, cancer imaging, and imaging
guided surgery with single-cell resolution, achieving unprecedented clarity of tumor margin.
This DP1 Project will integrate chemistry, physics, materials science and medicine and broadly
collaborate...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9961697
- **Project number:** 5DP1NS105737-04
- **Recipient organization:** STANFORD UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Hongjie Dai
- **Activity code:** DP1 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $1,099,000
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-09-01 → 2023-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9961697

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9961697, Human Infrared Vision at Molecular and Cellular Scale (5DP1NS105737-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9961697. Licensed CC0.

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