These agents are inherently safe due to the non-toxic effect of free IR700 even after irradiation, and our results demonstrate their powerful imaging properties and potent phototherapeutic activity, individually and in combination, against four different TNBC cell lines (Hs758T, MDA-MB-231, MDA-MB-453 and MDA-MB-468) and ER+ breast cancer cell line (MCF-7) expressing different levels of EGFR, EpCAM and CSPG4. This evidence concerns the gene ESR1 and breast cancer.