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and was raised there and in Ottawa, Ontario. He received a B.A.Sc. in 2004 in systems design engineering from the University of Waterloo. He obtained a M.Sc. in biochemistry in 2007 from McMaster University under the supervision of Dr. David Andrews. He is presently completing a Ph.D. at the Institute for Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto with Dr. Gang Zheng. His research interests are in the fascinating world of nanoscale bioengineering, including activatable fluorophores and photosensitizers for imaging and therapy. Tracy W. B. Liu graduated with a B.Sc. from the University of British Columbia in 2007. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Toronto in the department of Medical Biophysics under the cosupervision of Dr. Brian Wilson and Dr. Gang Zheng. Her doctorate studies are focused on the development of molecular beacons and their application in cancer diagnosis and therapeutics.

Supplementary Methods Synthesis of pyropheophorbide-lipidIn a standard reaction, 100 nmol of 1-palmitoyl-2-hydroxy-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (Avanti Polar Lipids), 50 nmol pyropheophorbide (prepared from Spirulina Pacifica algae as described previously;Zheng et al., Bioconj. Chem., 2002, 13-392), 50 nmol of 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl)carbodiimide (Sigma), 25 nmol of 4-(dimethylamino) pyridine (Sigma) and 50 µL of N,Ndiisopropylethylamine (Sigma) were combined in 10 mL of anhydrous dichloromethane. The reaction mixture was stirred at room temperature under argon in the dark for 48 hours. The solvent was evaporated and the residue was subjected to thin layer chromatography purification (20 x 20 cm pre-coated silica gel plate with fluorescent indicator, 1.5 mm in thickness). Chloroform-methanol-glacial acetic acid-water 65:25:8:2 (volume ratio) was used as the solvent. The major band with R f =0.4 was isolated from the plate and eluted giving a final yield of 45%. Recently, we found that improved purification could be achieved by using diol modified silica (Sorbtech) and eluting the product with 8% methanol in DCM after washing out impurities with 2% and 5% methanol in DCM. The pyropheophrobide-lipid was then dried under