US Patent Issued to UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME DU LAC on Nov. 11 for "Sterically shielded heptamethine cyanine dyes" (Indiana Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 11 -- United States Patent no. 12,466,814, issued on Nov. 11, was assigned to UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME DU LAC (South Bend, Ind.).

"Sterically shielded heptamethine cyanine dyes" was invented by Bradley D. Smith (Granger, Ind.) and Donghao Li (South Bend, Ind.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The near-infrared window of fluorescent heptamethine cyanine dyes greatly facilitates biological imaging because there is deep penetration of the light and negligible background fluorescence. But dye instability, aggregation, and poor pharmacokinetics are current drawbacks that limit performance and the scope of possible applications. All these limitations are simultaneously overcome w...