Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Polymeric Chloroquine In Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer Therapy, Rubayat Islam Khan

Theses & Dissertations

Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) is an established drug that has been used for the treatment of multiple diseases, including malaria, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus erythematosus. Several recently published studies have highlighted its beneficial use in various types of cancers, and a plethora of clinical trials are currently evaluating its use in cancer therapies, wherein some of the results look promising. The preclinical studies to date suggest HCQ can work effectively in conjunction with traditional cancer treatments, as it has been shown to sensitize tumor cells to a wide range of chemotherapeutic agents. Polymeric HCQ (PCQ), a macromolecular multivalent version of HCQ, has …

Evaluation Of Medication Optimization In The Setting Of Ecmo Therapy: Assessment Of Therapeutic Effectiveness, Greg Peitz

Theses & Dissertations

A series of studies within the setting of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) was undertaken to specifically answer questions related to medication optimization during this complex therapy. These studies included medication therapies involving optimal anticoagulation, analgesia delivery, fluid resuscitation, and infection related outcomes in the context of ECMO. Each investigation was retrospective in nature and included patients from a single institution. The results of these studies indicated the following: 1.) various anticoagulation goals do not impact severe, life-threatening bleeding events during ECMO therapy; 2.) sepsis is a common occurrence in the setting of ECMO; 3.) the choice of either a crystalloid …

Applications Of Population Pharmacokinetic Modeling In People Living With Hiv, Michelle M. Pham

Theses & Dissertations

Population pharmacokinetic modeling has become an important tool for the individualization of medicine in HIV care and clinical pharmacology in general. This dissertation explores many applications of population pharmacokinetic modeling to help identify drug exposure, drug-drug interactions, and sources of variability in populations living with HIV. Comprehensive HIV care involves simultaneous treatment of the disease and any co-infection and/or co-conditions.

The first objective was to identify potential drug-drug interactions affecting combination antiretroviral therapy (ART) consisting of efavirenz, tenofovir disoproxil fumarate and emtricitabine, from concomitant use of chemotherapy agents. Three models were developed with sparse sampling to characterize efavirenz, emtricitabine, and …

Biologically-Inspired Nanoparticles For Oncology Applications, Aishwarya Bapat

Theses & Dissertations

Cancer is the leading cause of death in the United States and its high mortality rate can be attributed towards poor diagnosis methods and less effective therapeutic treatments. Many nanotechnology-based diagnostics and therapeutics are being developed to improve cancer patient outcomes. In this work, we have studied nanoparticles for diagnostic and therapeutic applications in cancer treatment.

In the first work, novel fluorescent NPs loaded with indocyanine green (ICG) were developed for bioimaging applications of pancreatic cancer. Targeted fluorescent nanoparticles (NPs) are being developed to image a range of cancer types with the goal to improve patient outcomes by utilizing in …

Polymeric Nanocarriers For Delivery Of Small Molecules Inhibiting Tubulin Polymerization For The Treatment Of Pancreatic Cancer And Lung Metastatic Melanoma, Rajan Sharma Bhattarai

Theses & Dissertations

The aim of this thesis is to develop delivery systems for the novel small molecules which inhibit tubulin polymerization. One of the small molecules was modified to lipid conjugate to increase the lipophilicity of the molecules which in turn drastically improved the drug loading in amphiphilic polymeric system. The second molecule was conjugated to the amphiphilic polymeric backbone with pH sensitive Schiff’s linker for the tumor site specific delivery in lung metastatic melanoma model.

Chapter 1 discusses the tumor microenvironment for the solid tumor especially focusing on Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Further the drug delivery system currently researched for addressing …

Development Of Bioactive Polymers For Anticancer Sirna Therapy, Siyuan Tang

Theses & Dissertations

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is a deadly disease with limited treatment options due to late diagnosis and resistance to conventional chemotherapy. Moreover, with the decreased survival rate in the past several years, pancreatic cancer may become the second leading cause of cancer-related death by surpassing breast cancer in 2030. CXCR4/CXCL12 pathway is crucial in tumor-supporting microenvironment, tumor progression, angiogenesis, metastasis and chemotherapy resistance. Small interfering RNA (siRNA) is one of the interfering RNA (RNAi), which targets mRNA specifically then knockdowns the overexpressed oncogene. Thus, siRNA has been widely used as a therapeutic strategy for various diseases including PDAC. In the research …