(3y) Multifunctional Nanoparticles Based Cancer Nanomedicine

Nanoparticles, as building blocks of nanotechnology, provide a particularly useful platform with extremely wide applications. Among various applications, I am particularly interested in multifunctional nanoparticles based cancer nanomedicine from two aspects:

            (1) In vivo: multifunctional nanoparticles for cancer imaging, diagnosis and therapy. I have combined nanoparticle formulation design, microfluidic synthesis method development with comprehensive bio-evaluation to produce multifunctional nanoparticles with uniform size, structure and composition and high theranostic efficacy. During the poster session, I will highlight both systemic delivery and pulmonary delivery of multifunctional nanoparticles in lung cancer treatment.

            (2) In vitro: nanoparticles based liquid biopsy device for cancer early diagnosis and surveillance. Although significant progress has been made in the diagnosis, treatment and cure of cancers that originate in human blood (i.e. leukemia), minimal progress has been made for solid tumors. Factors contributing to this disappointment include late presentation of disease, lack of biomarkers for early detection, and molecular heterogeneity. A patient-friendly early detection and surveillance method would substantially reduce the mortality in this serious disease. As a non-invasive method, ‘liquid biopsy’, which relies on the capture and detection of either circulating tumor cells (CTC) or circulating exosomes/microvesicles in patient blood samples and other body fluids, has shown great potential to achieve this goal. Numerous efforts have been spent in this area, but none are able to simultaneously capture and detect CTC or circulating exosomes/microvesicles on a single device. I have developed a novel and simple tethered lipoplex nanoparticles (tLN) device that offers simultaneous cell sorting and intracellular biomarker detection of both CTC and circulating exosomes/microvesicles from the blood of cancer patients.  This facile technique holds great promise in our fight against cancer and other deadly diseases.

            Future challenges and my research plans will be also discussed in the poster session.