MRI micelles self-assembled from synthetic gadolinium-based nano building blocks.

A synthetic nano building block endowed with amphiphilic properties and chelated gadoliniumis presented. Spontaneous self-assembly into small 12 nm corona-core stealth Gd-micelles with inherently high gadolinium loading occurs in water. Gd-Micelles are a new blood pool contrast agent with high relaxivity for magnetic resonance imaging.