Biomedical MXenes as cell labeling and tracking platforms

WHY Visualizing, labeling, and tracking cells is critical for advancements in biomedical research, especially in areas like cancer treatment and cell therapy. Over the past two decades, practices for cell labeling strategies have remained unchanged, facing the same critical technological limitation: a lack of versatility. By using a multidisciplinary approach to create MX-tags, a new class of nanomaterials, BIO-MX aims to overcome this limitation to accelerate biomedical discoveries and protect human health.WHAT MX-tags will create an exciting chemical scenario coupled with single-cell mass cytometry (CyTOF), a revolutionary technology in cell biology. Although CyTOF has shaped the current understanding of cellular matter, fundamental needs remain to be addressed to enable new discoveries: 1. To develop universal cell tags that preserve cell functionality, are compatible with all cell types, and integrate seamlessly with advanced single-cell approaches.2. To produce highly abundant chemically versatile tags able to multiplex the information on cells going beyond current limited available chemistries.3. To create sensitive and multi-function imaging tags to label, track, and provide spatial resolution of cells for cancer applications.HOW My ground-breaking idea is based on transforming the chemistry of 2D materials called MXenes to create MX-tags, a new class of multi-modular materials involving the peculiar properties of cell-penetrating peptides and nanobodies that will open new horizons for mass cytometry-based discoveries. My unique expertise in CyTOF, immune cells, and 2D material development will drive the key steps of the project. My hypotheses rely on the future use of MX-tags as labeling, tracking, and multi-imaging tools. BIO-MX will provide transformative approaches and methods poised to contribute to human health.