Question: Why do you want to be able to see the gold nano particles? Do they have unique properties?

Nicola Rogers answered on 8 Mar 2014:

If we can easily see the gold nanoparticles under the microscope, then we can feed them to biological cells and see what happens. We notice that cells take in nanoparticles quite easily, and that they sometimes let larger particles into the nucleus. This is all very interesting because if we attach drug molecules to the nanoparticles as well, we can deliver them into the cells very easily.