PDT
Biophotonics Research at UCF

Many of today's cancer treatments, like chemotherapy, work by injecting patients with toxic chemicals. These chemicals kill cancer cells, but they also harm healthy cells, causing hair loss, weakness, and illness. One way to minimize these side effects is to localize the cancer-fighting drugs, so that they only target cancerous tumors, and one way to do that is with photodynamic therapy. Photodynamic therapy works by injecting patients with light-sensitive cancer-fighting drugs. These chemicals disperse through the patient's entire body, but remain inactive until they encounter a special light, which the physician focuses only onto the tumor. The drugs activate when they encounter the light and leave the surrounding (healthy) tissues undamaged. Photodynamic cancer is currently used to treat superficial cancers, like skin cancer and early-stage lung cancer. However, the multi-photon techniques developed by UCF's Chemistry Department can penetrate deeper and more efficiently than present-day (single-photon) photodynamic therapies. That means deeper cancers, like colon cancer, can now be treated with light. Today, multi-photon photodynamic therapy is being clinically tested. The public should begin to have access to multi-photon treatments in about five years.

For More Information

Kevin Belfield
Department of Chemistry
University of Central Florida
Orlando, FL 32816