Phosphonated Near‐Infrared Fluorophores for Biomedical Imaging of Bone

The conventional method for creating targeted contrast agents is to conjugate separate targeting and fluorophore domains. A new strategy is based on the incorporation of targeting moieties into the non-delocalized structure of pentamethine and heptamethine indocyanines. Using the known affinity of phosphonates for bone minerals in a model system, two families of bifunctional molecules that target bone without requiring a traditional...