This is the monthly networking meeting for faculty and staff affiliated with NDnano. For more information on affiliating with the Center, please contact Heidi Deethardt at deethardt.1@nd.edu.
Tuesday, March 26
Noon-1:00 pm • 202 Nieuwland
Presenter
Yichun Wang, Assistant Professor, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Title
Engineering Biomimetic Materials to Empower Therapeutic Exosomes in Future Medicine
Abstract
Exosomes are a subset of extracellular vesicles, with diameters between 50 nm and 150 nm, secreted by most eukaryotic cells. They are promising drug delivery vehicles due to their small size, biocompatibility, low immunogenicity, and reduced toxicity in comparison with synthetic nanoscale formulations such as liposomes, dendrimers, and polymers. However, there remain fundamental challenges to the utilization of exosomes in the clinic: i) drug loading efficiency into exosomes is very limited; ii) the production of exosomes has yet to reach sufficient high throughput for clinical tests or even further development; iii) endowing exosomes with multiple abilities for satisfactory disease targeting, tracking and combinational therapies is highly demanding. In this talk, I will introduce a convergent bioengineered platform enabled by engineered biomimetic materials developed in The Wang Lab at the University of Notre Dame for advancing therapeutic exosomes in future medicine. This platform includes 1) A high-efficiency exosome drug loading technology with chiral graphene nanoparticles; 2) A high-yield in vitro exosome production cell culture scaffold with stimulating piezoelectric nanofibers; 3) Engineered hybrid exosomes with biomimetic nanoparticles as a multifunctional targeted delivery system for cancer treatment. The platform allows loading drugs into exosomes with high efficiency, biomanufacturing exosomes in high throughput, and further engineering exosome-based drug delivery systems for various diseases with desired functions including targeted delivery, imaging, and multifunctional therapies.
Register to attend the March 26 luncheon
Originally published at nano.nd.edu.