Engineering Commons^™

Targeted Delivery Of Nrf2 Sirna Using Modular Polymeric Micellar Nanodelivery System For Efficient Target Gene Knockdown In Hepatocellular Carcinoma, Shaimaa Mohamed Ibrahim Yousef

Wayne State University Theses

Tumor selective drug delivery as well as chemotherapy associated multi drug resistance (MDR) pose tremendous hurdles for effective cancer therapy. In this regard, designing multifunctional nanocarriers loaded with drug/gene payloads and engineered with tumor targeting ligands can serve as a modular platform for targeted drug/gene delivery. In this study we undertook the synthesis of a self-assembling block copolymer constructed using poly(styrene-co-maleic anhydride, partial iso-octyl ester) (SMAPIE) and branched polyethylenimine (PEI) as building blocks and evaluated its micelle forming ability, siRNA complexation and siRNA delivery potentials. In addition, we engineered galactosamine decorated nanomicelles using modular “click” chemistry based approaches for evaluating …

Ph Responsive Hydrogen Bonding Motif To Improve The Sensitivity Of Tumor Imaging, Fatimah Mohammed Algarni

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a powerful non-invasive medical diagnostic technique. Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIO) are effective contrast agents and provide high sensitivity contrast in MRI. Recent research has demonstrated that nanoparticle clusters exhibit significantly higher relaxivity than individual nanoparticles.

In order to increase the sensitivity of tumor imaging, supramolecular chemistry was introduced to this field and a novel conjugation method was developed using click chemistry between azide functionalized nanoparticles and pH-sensitive hydrogen bonding building blocks. This pH-sensitive hydrogen bonded complex was synthesized to cluster nanoparticles under mildly acidic biological conditions.

Due to the unexpected X-ray crystal structure of …