Translational Nanomedicine and Drug Delivery

Translational Nanomedicine and Drug Delivery (TNDD) is designed for students who are interested in molecular design of nanomedicine platforms to help translate basic biological science to clinical medicine. TNDD is ideally suited for students with strong engineering, physical science, or biology background and a keen desire to cross the boundaries between traditional scientific disciplines.

Degree Plan

Research Topics

TNDD faculty members are from a diverse scientific, engineering, and clinical background to offer a highly interdisciplinary training environment. Molecular design and nano engineering are closely integrated with pathophysiology and biology rationales to establish emerging precision paradigms for disease diagnosis and therapy. Examples include:

Nano delineation of tumor boundaries for image-guided cancer surgery
Minimalist nanovaccine for immunotherapy
Theranostic nanomedicine integrating imaging and therapeutic delivery targeting diabetes or cancer
Cancer-targeted siRNA/miRNA delivery and therapy

Director

Research Interests: Nanomedicine and image-guided drug delivery for novel diagnostic and therapeutic applications in oncology

Faculty

Research Interests: Molecular Imaging; optical imaging; instrument development; image-guided surgery; cancer treatment, molecular probes; spectroscopy, multimodal nuclear and magnetic imaging; stimulated thermal imaging, nanomedicine

Research Interests: Drug resistance mechanism, drug delivery systems, nanoparticles, immunotherapy, tissue engineering

Research Interests: Activatable optical/MRI imaging probes to study tumor metabolism and theranostic nanomedicine for cancer-targeted drug therapy

Research Interests: Ultrasound contrast agent, perfluorocarbon emulsions, development of new ultrasound-based strategies for early detection and treatment of diseases

Research Interests: Ultrasound-guided drug and gene delivery, Targeted drug delivery system, Materials Science, Immunotherapy, Image-guided therapy, Nanomedicine

Research Interests: Tumor pathophysiology, development of novel therapeutics and prognostic imaging biomarkers based on MRI, optical and photoacoustic imaging.

Research Interests: Nanomedicine, immunotherapy, ultrasound and radiation guided chemo-immunonotherapy

Research Interests: Polymer and materials chemistry, drug and gene delivery, RNAi, biomedical imaging, detection and treatment of cancer

Research Interests: Clinical application of nanoprobes with unique nanoscale behavior

Research Interests: Development of PET, SPECT, and MRI imaging probes to assess biological abnormalities and evaluation of disease treatment

Research Interests: Biomaterials, immunoengineering, infection tissue engineering

Associate Members

These faculty members do not accept graduate students. They participate in teaching, co-mentoring, exam and dissertation committees, and all other program activities.

Research Interests: Evolution of molecular components of the nervous system, gene therapy for genetic disorders, how pain alters cognitive function and leads to co-morbid addiction, how pain is altered by cognitive state

Research Interests: Nanomedicine, lipid nanoparticles, mRNA, siRNA, CRISPR/Cas, base editing, genetic medicines, gene editing

Research Interests: Nanomaterials, cancer research, axon regeneration

Research Interests: Cervical cancer, developmental therapeutics, ovarian cancer, early detection of ovarian cancer

Research Interests: Pathogen inactivation, cancer prevention, aging research

Research Interests: Application of biomedical engineering to cancer research, developing novel cancer diagnostics and therapeutics to improve cancer treatment, genitourinary cancer, gastrointestinal cancers, biomedical engineering, nanotechnology, radiation oncology, translational research, cancer immunotherapy, cancer nanotherapeutics, cancer biomarkers, radioisotopes, nanoparticles, prostate cancer, chemoradiotherapy