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# Single and self-assembled gold nanoclusters for biophotonic applications and cancer therapy

Xavier Le Guével

► To cite this version:

Xavier Le Guével. Single and self-assembled gold nanoclusters for biophotonic applications and cancer therapy. 2025. hal-04739012

HAL Id: hal-04739012

https://hal.science/hal-04739012v1

Preprint submitted on 19 Sep 2025

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# Single and self-assembled gold nanoclusters for biophotonic applications and cancer therapy

Tuesday, Sept 24, 2024

2:30 – 3:30 p.m.

In-Person: ABB 162

Online: https://mcmaster.zoom.us/j/99415108847

Among the large library of organic and inorganic nanosystems, noble metal nanoclusters—primarily gold—are ultra-small particles with sizes below 3 nm. These nanoobjects are highly attractive in the fields of biophotonics and biomedicine due to their unique molecular-like properties, which include tunable photoluminescence ranging from UV to near-infrared, chirality, enzymatic reactivity, and photo/radiotoxicity. These properties can be harnessed for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes and are closely linked to the nanoclusters' size and the precise design of ligand engineering. Moreover, recent studies have reported new optical properties, such as striking enhancements in absorbance and photoluminescence, when these metal nanoclusters are organized in one, two, or three dimensions. This opens up promising avenues for applications in optoelectronics, biosensing, and nanomedicine.

We design biocompatible gold nanoclusters at the single level using short organic molecules or peptides and at assembly levels using polymers, and biomolecules (DNA, protein) as matrices. We investigate their morphology, physico-chemical and optical properties.

In the context of cancer therapy, we develop these nanosystems to enhance their targeting of cancer cells and to induce cell death through combined strategies, including siRNA delivery and light/X-ray stimulation. We study the interactions of these nanosystems in artificial models as well as in 2D and 3D cancer cell cultures (including lung, breast, and glioblastoma). Additionally, we assess their biodistribution and therapeutic efficacy in tumor-bearing mice.

Full abstract on https://brockhouse.mcmaster.ca/events/

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>Dr. Xavier Le Guevel</figcaption></figure>

University of Grenoble
Alpes (France) and CNRS
Researcher

Dr Xavier Le Guével obtained his PhD in 2006 in Chemistry from the University of Tours/ French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (France). Following this, he did some postdoctoral fellowships in the fields of optical waveguides (Rome, Italy), biosensors (Dublin, Ireland) and pharmaceutical nanotechnology (Saarbrücken, Germany) between 2006 and 2010 before starting as an independent researcher at the Nanomedicine Centre Bionand in Malaga (Spain) in close collaboration with the department of Allergy at Malaga hospital.

Since 2016, XLG has been a CNRS researcher, and then CNRS research director since 2023 at the Institute for Advanced Biosciences at the University of Grenoble Alpes (France).

XLG was PI on various private and public funded projects (Plan cancer, ARC, ANR, LCC, Merck Serono, Carlos Tercero...) dedicated to the use of nanomaterials for diagnosis and therapy. His work focuses on the development of new nanosystems such as metal nanoclusters and optical instruments for medical applications and more specifically for cancer treatment and diagnosis from the fundamental research to pre-clinical applications.

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