Front Cover: Copper‐Catalyzed Covalent Dimerization of Near‐Infrared Fluorescent Cyanine Dyes: Synergistic Enhancement of Photoacoustic Signals for Molecular Imaging of Tumors (Anal. Sens. 1/2022)

Abstract

The cover picture shows copper (hammer)-catalyzes the assembly of monomeric near-infrared fluorescent dye molecules, cypate (yellow glow), into covalently-linked dimeric molecules (merged red balls). Dimerization induces fluorescence quenching due to enhanced photothermal dissipation (red hot flashes), which generates acoustic waves. Decorating the dimers with a tumor-targeting agent, LS301, facilitates selective tumor uptake of the probes, which are detectable in vivo by photoacoustic imaging. More information can be found in the Communication by Samuel Achilefu, Chulhong Kim and co-workers.