CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS

1.    Nanoparticles containing anti-inflammatory agents as chemotherapy adjuvants

I am investigating a novel strategy to overcome some of the physiological barriers that impede the effectiveness of anti-tumor drugs. The results we have obtained have indicated that if anti-inflammatory drugs can be delivered specifically to tumors and not just to the general circulation, they can reduce the hydrostatic pressure that is known to increase in solid tumors. This increased pressure can prevent anti-tumor drugs from penetrating into tumors. The central effect of these anti-inflammatory drugs would work against the body’s natural cancer-fighting cells. Thus, specific delivery of the anti-inflammatory drugs to the tumors is critical. We are using nanotechnology to accomplish this goal.

2.    Dual imaging-therapeutic nanovectors for optimizing cancer diagnosis and therapy

This work is being supported in part by a grant from the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and BioEngineering, grant number R41 EB005856-01. These dual imaging-therapeutic nanovectors will allow the assessment of the in vivo pharmacokinetics of nanoparticle-based drug delivery by noninvasive imaging techniques. This project will help to establish a correlation between nanoparticle-based drug delivery and tumor responses. As the leader of this project, I received the Benedict Cassen Post-Doctoral Fellowship Award from the Education and Research Foundation for the Society of Nuclear Medicine.

3.    Countermeasures to Nuclear Terrorism

I am contributing to another major project that is currently funded by the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). This $5.2 million grant is for the development of “radionuclide decorporation agents” which are drugs that will help rid the body of radioactive materials in persons that have been exposed to a “dirty bomb” or have otherwise been the victims of inadvertent contamination with radioactive elements like Plutonium. This is a basic pharmaceutical sciences project where my background in biochemical and process engineering as well as in formulation development will be critical to its success. In addition, I am a co-Principal Investigator on a proposal that was recently submitted to the National Institutes of Health which is also related to nuclear terrorism. This $1.8 million project is focused on using nanotechnology and membrane technology to develop a system that would rapidly detect and identify radioactivity in contaminated people following a nuclear terrorism event.

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