Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health Commons^™

Macrophage Uptake And Cytotoxicity Of Paclitaxel Nanocrystals, Deborah Lee, Emeri Zhang, Wei Gao, Tonglei Li

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Effective drug delivery remains one of the most challenging tasks in combatting cancer cells. Anti-cancer drugs such as Paclitaxel (PTX) often struggle in having a high drug effect because they are often phagocytized by macrophages in Reticuloendothelial System (RES) before reaching the cancer cells. To combat this problem, PTX was inserted in a nanocrystal, coated with non-ionic surfactant F68; it is speculated that this formulation will minimize the particle aggregation and decrease the cellular uptake in the RES, which will increase the overall efficacy of the drug in the target areas. The aim of this project was to compare the …