In Person Lecture: Sticky Nanoparticles for Health and Healing
Paula T. Hammond, Ph.D.
Professor and Department Head
Department of Chemical Engineering
Koch Institute of Integrative Cancer Research
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Member, National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Medicine, and National Academy of Engineering
Maury Strauss Distinguished Public Lecture: Sticky Nanoparticles for Health and Healing
Date: April 27, 2023
Time: 5:30 - 6:30 p.m. (Reception and hors d'oeuvres at 5 p.m.)
About this Seminar
Polyelectrolytes have unique properties that make them advantageous for the design of nanomaterials for drug delivery. These polymers are water-soluble, have a large number of easily modified reactive side chains for attachment of ligands, and can exhibit charge that can be designed to be sensitive to physiological conditions such as pH, redox conditions or the presence of specific enzymes. This capability makes charge a very enabling tool in the targeting of nanomaterials to specific tissues, as well as in adapting the transport of nanoparticles through typically charged and dense tissue matrices consisting largely of proteoglycans, polysaccharides or other biomolecular networks. In each case in which charge is an enabling factor for penetration in an oppositely charged matrix, there is also a complementary requirement to modulate the charge to enable interaction while affording effective diffusion and transport within tissues and organs. Examples include the use of charged polyamidoamine dendrimers for the penetration of drug into cartilage, and the use of polyethylene oxide shielding groups to modify the amount of charge exposed. Systematic studies reveal a critical parameter space within which we must balance these properties while maintaining biocompatibility of the nanocarrier, and a means of defining the effective charge in such shielded systems. Dr. Hammond and her lab have developed a modular nanoparticle approach using core particles and layering them with an electrostatic layer-by-layer (LBL) process in a simple and elegant method of constructing highly tailored ultrathin polymer coatings. The resulting LbL nanoparticles (LbL NPs) have negatively charged outer layers that present polyelectrolytes such as dextran sulfate or hyaluronic acid in a hydrated brush arrangement that enables hydration, steric repulsion, colloidal and serum stability, and specific or non-specific targeting. Ultimately, it is also important to introduce other kinds of interactions, particularly when targeting specific cells such as immune or cancer cells; often these interactions include receptor-specific interactions, but non-specific interactions can also have a very significant role in directing particles to cancer or other disease-associated cell types.
Additional Details
This is a free event hosted by Dr. Michael Friedlander and the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute. For more information, please call 540-526-2059.
About Maury Strauss
Maury Strauss is a longtime community benefactor and businessman who supports biomedical research with the goal of energizing the local economy and improving quality of life in our neighborhoods and around the world. In order to ensure the continued success of Roanoke’s biomedical research enterprise, as well as the free public seminars, Mr. Strauss has made a generous gift to the series. Read More.
Support Our Research
Your generous support of the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute's rigorous biomedical research enterprise makes a difference for our faculty, students, and patients. Every donation helps accelerate the pace of new discoveries to help patients with cancer, neurological disorders, heart disease, and even rare genetic disorders. Private donations fast-track our progress.
You May Also Be Interested In...
-
Home ItemIn Person Seminar: Our Mass Spectrometry Screening Studies in the Mouse and Human Hearts in Health and Disease , home
April 26, 2024, 11 a.m. | Anthony Gramolini, Ph.D., Professor, Physiology and Translational Biology and Engineering, Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research, University of Toronto | Co-Sponsored by the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute Center for Vascular and Heart Research
-
Home ItemIn Person Seminar: Regulation of Mitochondrial Parameters in Skeletal Muscle , home
May 3, 2024, 11:00 a.m. | Glenn Rowe, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Disease, University of Alabama at Birmingham | Co-Sponsored by the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute Center for Exercise Medicine Research
-
Home ItemPlanning the Future of Environmental Health Sciences , home
May 9, 2024, 5:30 p.m. (Reception at 5 p.m.) | Rick Woychik, Ph.D., Director, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health | Maury Strauss Distinguished Public Lecture
-
Home ItemIn Person Seminar: Flavors in Tobacco and Nicotine Products: Science-based Regulation , home
May 10, 2024, 11:00 a.m. | Suchitra Krishnan-Sarin, Ph.D., Albert E. Kent Professor of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine | Co-Sponsored by the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute Center for Health Behaviors Research and the Addiction Recovery Research Center
-
Home ItemCANCELLED: In Person Seminar: Sex Influences on Brain and Body: An Issue That is Here to Stay , home
May 17, 2024, 11:00 a.m. | Larry Cahill, Ph.D., Professor, Neurobiology and Behavior, University of California, Irvine | Co-Sponsored by the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute Center for Human Neuroscience Research
-
Home ItemIn Person Seminar: Continuous Decision-Making , home
May 17, 2024, 11:00 a.m. | Benjamin Hayden, Ph.D., Professor and McNair Scholar of Neurosurgery, Baylor College of Medicine | Co-Sponsored by the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute Center for Human Neuroscience Research