Nanotechnology Commons^™

Iron-Based Nanoparticles As Delivery Tools, Keykavous Parang, Rajesh Vadlapatla, Ajoy Koomer, Victoria Moran, Lanie Jackson, Amir Nasrolahi Shirazi

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Iron-based nanoparticles, particularly iron oxide nanostructures (IONPs), have emerged as versatile and clinically relevant platforms for drug delivery and theranostic applications. Among these, superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs), including magnetite (Fe₃O₄) and maghemite (γ-Fe₂O₃), are the most extensively investigated due to their biocompatibility, magnetic responsiveness, and established safety profiles. Their unique superparamagnetic behavior enables external magnetic-field-guided targeting, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast enhancement, and magnetically triggered hyperthermia, enabling simultaneous diagnosis and therapy. Surface functionalization with polymers, silica, lipids, peptides, and biomolecules further improves colloidal stability, circulation time, targeting specificity, and controlled drug …

Recent Progress In Nanogel Technology: From Molecular Design To Biomedical Applications, Fatima Raed Al-Ahmed, Mohammed Sabar Al-Lami

Maaen Journal for Medical Sciences

Nanogels, a hydrophilic polymer network at the nanoscale, combine the structural flexibility of hydrogels with the dynamic behavior of nanoparticles, offering unprecedented control over drug loading and release. Their large surface area, tunable porosity, high water content, biocompatibility, and stimuli-responsive behavior enable transport across biological barriers. This review critically examines nanogels’ unique properties, classifications, diverse methods of preparation, drug release mechanisms, characterization techniques, and various applications in therapeutic areas, such as cancer therapy, wound healing, transdermal and ocular drug delivery, and theranostics. Highlights are shed on nanogels’ potential to target specific sites, both by functionalization and stimuli-responsive behavior, therefore improving …

Gadolinium Nanoparticles: Emerging Platforms Beyond Imaging For Drug Delivery And Theranostics, Amir Nasrolahi Shirazi, Rajesh Vadlapatla, Ajoy Koomer, Heyam Zayed, Paris Marabut, Keykavous Parang

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Gadolinium nanoparticles (GdNPs) have gained increasing attention as multifunctional metal-based nanoplatforms that extend far beyond their traditional use as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agents. Their specific magnetic properties, tunable physicochemical features, and tunable biocompatibilities with biocompatible coatings give them great potential as drug delivery and theranostic applications. They offer greater stability, lower systemic toxicity, and more surface modification options compared to molecular gadolinium chelates. The functionalized GdNPs not only show excellent properties as drug carriers for their specific indications but also serve as agents in various imaging modalities with superior therapeutic efficacy by means of radio sensitization and magnetically …

A Systematic Review On Niosomes: Composition, Preparation, And Applications, Sanket Gawade Mr., Sunil Attimarad, Vishakha Desai Ms.

Manipal Journal of Medical Sciences

Conventional drug carrier systems are restricted owing to poor bioavailability, weak stability and non-specific localization, which causes systemic toxicities and reduced therapeutic efficacy. Niosomes, one of the nonionic surfactant vesicular systems, have been suggested that value to overcome these constraints. In this review, we give an account of recent progress in niosome research, highlighting their merits, composition, characterization, and applications.

Niosomes offer several advantages including increased drug bioavailability, targeted delivery and reduced toxicity. Bilayered niosomes can entrap both hydrophilic and lipophilic drugs, therefore allowing simultaneous delivery of actives components. We provide an overview of various techniques for niosome preparation including …

Investigating The Immunostimulatory Potential Of Dsrna-Silk Nanoparticle Complexes In Melanoma, Samuel J. Peters

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The rate of resistance to immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment in metastatic melanoma is quite high, with an overall rate of 70%. Melanoma achieves these high rates of resistance by suppressing the immune response in the tumour microenvironment (TME), making them immunologically “cold”. The type 1 interferon response could be leveraged to initiate immune responses in melanoma, making their “cold” TMEs “warm” again. Double-stranded ribonucleic acids (dsRNAs) are potent activators of an innate immune response; however, they are susceptible to degradation by nucleases present in the body and need a carrier. Silk nanoparticles (SNPs) are an ideal drug-delivery platform as they …

Selenium Nanoparticles As Versatile Delivery Tools, Amir Nasrolahi Shirazi, Rajesh Vadlapatla, Ajoy Koomer, Kyle Yep, Keykavous Parang

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Selenium nanoparticles (SeNPs) have emerged as promising metal-based nanoparticles for drug delivery due to their unique physicochemical properties, intrinsic bioactivity, and biocompatibility. SeNPs offer a lower toxicity, higher bioavailability, and flexibility to be customized for surface chemistry compared to traditional selenium compounds. Advances in synthetic strategies, including chemical reduction, green biosynthesis, and surface functionalization with polymers, peptides, or ligands, have improved their stability, targeting capability, and circulation time. SeNP-based systems have demonstrated unique anticancer, antimicrobial, and anti-inflammatory activities, as they can function as drug carriers and active therapeutic agents. The surface of SeNPs has been functionalized with ligands such as …

Application Of Bioactive Materials Primary Cilia As A Novel Delivery Vehicle, Ayan K. Barui, Farideh Amirrad, Vansh Goel, Sharareh Ohadi, Rajasekharreddy Pala, Ashraf M. Mohieldin, Andromeda M. Nauli, Surya M. Nauli

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Primary cilia are hair-like structured cell organelles functioning as cellular antennae with chemosensory and mechanosensory roles. Dysfunction of cilia results in ciliopathies, including renovascular diseases (polycystic kidneys, hypertension, aneurysm), mental impedances (Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, dementia), metabolic diseases (obesity, developmental skeleton defects), blindness, and so on. With a diameter of 150 nm, cilia can be cleaved, released and circulated in the body as injury biomarkers. We here assessed the potential use of isolated cilia as a novel delivery vehicle. Cilia were isolated from renal epithelial cells, and a specific-targeting chemotherapeutic was designed on the cilia. The data show a remarkable …

Magnetic And Ph-Sensitive Dual Actuation Of Biohybrid Microswimmer Of Targeted Drug Release Suitable For Cancer Cell Microenvironment, Richa Chaturvedi, Yumin Kang, Yunji Eom, Sri Ramulu Torati, Cheolgi Kim

Center for Bioelectronics Publications

The chemotherapeutic agents most frequently used in cancer treatment often have limited effectiveness because of their low specificity for tumors and poor therapeutic performance. In addition to the aforementioned therapeutic challenges the drug delivery carriers conjugated with the drug encounter early detection and elimination from the immune system before arriving at the affected area continues to be a significant research focus among researchers. To address this prevalent issue, an effective approach has been developed that leverages the physiological differences between normal and tumor tissue to enhance the efficacy of anticancer drugs. This drug delivery system is designed based on pH-sensitive …

Development And Characterization Of Polysaccharide-Based Controlled Drug Delivery Platforms, Amanda Pepler

Open Access Dissertations

Drug delivery research focuses on overcoming challenges in patient treatment. Most therapeutics are delivered systemically through oral or intravenous routes. However, these administration methods are often inefficient due to therapeutic hydrophobicity, poor bioavailability, and liver metabolic clearance, necessitating frequent dosing. When treatment plans require frequent dosing, patients experience significant fluctuations in therapeutic concentration in the bloodstream, which can increase adverse side effects. These factors contribute to low patient compliance. Therefore, the core focus of drug delivery research is to develop new administration routes for therapeutics. Drug delivery systems (DDS) that can target therapeutics to a localized region offer advantages over …

Understanding Nanoparticle-Liver Interactions In Nanomedicine, Yuxin He, Yifan Wang, Lin Wang, Wen Jiang, Stefan Wilhelm

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Introduction: Understanding the interactions between administered nanoparticles and the liver is crucial for developing safe and effective nanomedicines. As the liver can sequester up to 99% of these particles due to its major phagocytic role, understanding these interactions is vital for clinical translation.

Areas covered: This review highlights recent studies on nanoparticle-liver interactions, including the influence of nanoparticle physicochemical properties on delivery, strategies to enhance delivery efficiency by modulating liver Kupffer cells, and their potential for treating certain hepatic diseases. Additionally, we discuss how aging impacts the liver's phagocytic functions.

Expert opinion: While liver accumulation can hinder nanomedicine safety and …

Self-Assembled Ternary Polypeptide Nanoparticles With Improved Biostability For Drug Delivery In Cancer Therapy, Preye Mike Agbana

Theses and Dissertations--Pharmacy

Cancer remains a real and present threat to global health. In the United States, according to cancer statistics, almost 40% of people will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lifetime. Conventional chemotherapy has become the mainstay for cancer treatment option. However, chemotherapeutic agents are plagued with problems such as poor aqueous solubility, chemical degradation, Bio instability, and off-site toxicity due to non-specificity. New drug modalities are needed to tackle the ever-growing burden on cancer. In recent times, the promise of nanotechnology has aided to develop drug delivery vehicles to facilitate the administration of potent chemotherapeutics. Nanoformulations such …

Synthesis, Characterization, And Application Of Chitosan Nanoparticles For In Vitro Studies On Hela Cancer Cells, Rejeena Jha

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Chitosan is a fibrous substance that is derived from chitin, a natural substance in the shells of crustaceans. It possesses all the necessary qualities for being used as carrier for the transport of drugs and genes into tumor, such as biodegradability, biocompatibility, hydrophilicity, and non-toxicity and cationic in nature. Ionic gelation method was used to synthesize chitosan (CS) nanoparticles (NPs). Ionic gelation is a very benign process chemically that requires mixing a CS aqueous solution with a sodium tripolyphosphate (TPP) aqueous solution at room temperature. In addition, a surfactant polyethylene oxide (PEO) alone and a diblock copolymer of PEO and …

Nanotherapeutics And Hiv: Four Decades Of Infection Canvass The Quest For Drug Development Using Nanomedical Technologies, Bhupender S. Chhikara, Nirpendra Singh, Poonam, Parveen Bazard, Rajender S. Varma, Keykavous Parang

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

We have seen four decades of human struggle to cure or eradicate HIV infection since the first clinical detection of HIV infection. Various developed drugs such as nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs), non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs), protease inhibitors, integrase inhibitors, microbicides, and others have known restrictions, such as side effects and resistance development when used alone, and hidden reservoir of the virus, which have opened the gates for the involvement of nanomedicine associated systems, particularly for latent sites of HIV infection. The nanotechnological vehicles, such as liposomes, dendrimers, metal nanoparticles, polymeric nanocapsules/particles, surfactants, and targeted vehicles have become part …

Exploiting Modulation Of The Blood-Brain And Blood-Tumor Barrier Permeability By Translational Focused Ultrasound For Therapeutic Delivery To Cns Metastases, Tasneem A. Arsiwala

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Transcranial low-intensity focused ultrasound is a unique technology to modulate the integrity of tight endothelial junctions and transiently increase BBB/BTB permeability to enhance therapeutic delivery. Despite promising early studies, present literature lacks agreement on key experimental conditions, which restricts our knowledge and the technique's widespread translation. This dissertation first provides a critical review of the current gaps in knowledge regarding the universal use of LiFUS in preclinical and clinical use. We then identify key parameters for translational and predictable opening of the BBB using a 3T MRI coupled with a clinical device. Our investigation highlights that passive permeability of the …

Development Of Biomaterials For Drug Delivery, Raquel De Castro

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Drug delivery systems (DDS) have highly evolved in the last decades with the development of hydrogels and nanoparticles. However, high systemic uptake, side effects, low bioavailability, and encapsulation efficiency continue to be a major hurdle faced by such DDSs.

Nanoparticles and hydrogels can be specifically designed for targeted DDSs to mitigate some of the problems. This dissertation aimed to design two DDSs for ocular drug delivery and one for cancer treatment. The first project sought to develop chitosan nanoparticles (Cs-NP) using PEGDA as a copolymer to encapsulate gentamicin (GtS) for ocular drug delivery. Cs-NPs contain positive charges that can interact …

Ligand-Installed Polymeric Nanocarriers For Combination Chemotherapy, Xinyuan Xi

Theses & Dissertations

Combination chemotherapy remains the mainstay of cancer treatment because such strategy targets different cell signaling pathways to decrease the likelihood of developing protective mechanisms by cancer cells, thereby delaying the onset of recurrence and prolonging the survival. The co-delivery of binary drug combination via a single nanocarrier provides benefits in reducing dose-limiting toxicities, improving the pharmacokinetic properties of the cargo, spatial-temporal synchronization of drug exposure, and synergistic therapeutic effects. Rational design of such regimen is crucial for maximizing the therapeutic effects since only certain drug ratios exposed to the target might be synergistic while other ratios exert additive or even …

Developing A Dissociative Nanocontainer For Peptide Drug Delivery, Michael Patrick Kelly

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The potency and specificity of bioactive peptides have propelled these agents to the forefront of pharmacological research. However, delivery of peptides to their molecular target in cells is a major obstacle to their widespread application. A Trojan Horse strategy of packaging a bioactive peptide within a modified protein cage to protect it during transport, and releasing it at the target site, is a promising delivery method. Recent work has demonstrated that the viral capsid of the P22 bacteriophage can be loaded with an arbitrary, genetically-encoded peptide, and externally decorated with a cell-penetrating peptide, such as HIV-Tat, to translocate across in …

Development Of Bar-Peptide Nanoparticles And Electrospun Fibers For The Prevention And Treatment Of Oral Biofilms., Mohamed Yehia Mahmoud

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Background: Periodontal diseases are globally prevalent inflammatory disorders that affect ~47% of U.S adults. Porphyromonas gingivalis (Pg) has been identified as a “keystone” pathogen that disrupts host-microbe homeostasis and contributes to the initiation and progression of periodontitis. Pg associates with oral streptococci in supragingival plaque and this interaction represents a potential target for therapeutic intervention. Previously our group developed a peptide (designated BAR), that potently inhibits Pg/Streptococcus gordonii (Sg) adherence in vitro and Pg virulence in a murine model of periodontitis. While efficacious, BAR (SspB Adherence Region) provided transient inhibition and required higher concentrations of BAR to disrupt established …

Preparation And Characterization Of Multimodal Hybrid Organic And Inorganic Nanocrystals Of Camptothecin And Gold, Christin P. Hollis, Alan K. Dozier, Barbara L. Knutson, Tonglei Li

Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Publications

We demonstrate a novel inorganic-organic crystalline nanoconstruct, where gold atoms were imbedded in the crystal lattices as defects of camptothecin nanocrystals, suggesting its potential use as simultaneous agents for cancer therapy and bioimaging. The incorporation of gold, a potential computed tomography (CT) contrast agent, in the nanocrystals of camptothecin was detected by transmission electron microscope (TEM) and further quantified by energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDS) and inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometers (ICP-OES). Due to gold's high attenuation coefficient, only a relatively small amount needs to be present in order to create a good noise-to-contrast ratio in CT imaging. The imbedded …

Mechanisms And Thermodynamics Of The Influence Of Solution-State Interactions Between Hpmc And Surfactants On Mixed Adsorption Onto Model Nanoparticles, Salin Gupta Patel

Theses and Dissertations--Pharmacy

Nanoparticulate drug delivery systems (NDDS) such as nanocrystals, nanosuspensions, solid-lipid nanoparticles often formulated for the bioavailability enhancement of poorly soluble drug candidates are stabilized by a mixture of excipients including surfactants and polymers. Most literature studies have focused on the interaction of excipients with the NDDS surfaces while ignoring the interaction of excipients in solution and the extent to which the solution-state interactions influence the affinity and capacity of adsorption. Mechanisms by which excipients stabilize NDDS and how this information can be utilized by formulators a priori to make a rational selection of excipients is not known.

The goals of …

Nanomedicine For Immunosuppressive Therapy: Achievements In Pre-Clinical Research, Hanan Al-Lawati, Hamidreza Montazeri Aliabadi, Behzad Sharif Makhmalzadeh, Afsaneh Lavasanifar

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Introduction: Immunosuppression is the mainstay therapy in organ transplantation and autoimmune diseases. The effective clinical application of immunosuppressive agents has suffered from the emergence of systemic immunosuppression and/or individual drug side effects. Nanotechnology approaches may be used to modify the mentioned shortcomings by enhancing the delivery of immunosuppressants to target cells of the immune system, thus reducing the required dose for function, and/or reducing drug distribution to non-target tissues.

Areas covered: We provide an overview on the development of nanotechnology products for the most commonly used immunosuppressive agents. At first, the rationale for the use of nanoparticles as …

Multifunctional Nanosystems For Targeting And Treating Cancer Cells, Vijayalakshmi Dantuluri

Theses and Dissertations

In the United States, breast cancer is one of the most frequently occurring and deadly cancers. Though various therapies have seen success, they have numerous negative side effects. The incorporation of nanomaterials with anticancer drugs could help avoid these side effects and enhance the drugs’ effects. Nanomaterials have many properties, such as size, shape, structure, morphology, and surface features, that can be precisely tuned by altering their chemical composition. In this work, we explored the use of graphene and gold nanorods to enhance drug localization in and destruction of cancer cells by targeted delivery of the drugs doxorubicin (Dox) and …

Design Of Drug Nano-Carriers For Study Of Multidrug Resistance In Single Live Cells, Pavan Kumar Cherukuri

Chemistry & Biochemistry Theses & Dissertations

Multidrug resistance (MDR) exists in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. MDR is responsible for ineffective treatment of a wide range of diseases, such as infections and cancer. The ATP-binding cassette (ABC) membrane transporters (efflux pumps) are one of the largest and most diverse super-families of membrane proteins found in all living organisms, ranging from bacteria to humans. All ABC transporters share a common structure of four core domains; two transmembrane domains (TMD) with variable sequence and topology and two nucleotide-binding domains (NBD) with conserved sequences. Conventional methods for the study of the efflux functions are radioactively labeled substrates and fluorescent …

Gold Nanostars For Efficient In Vitro And In Vivo Real-Time Sers Detection And Drug Delivery Via Plasmonic-Tunable Raman/Ftir Imaging, Furong Tian, Joao Conde, Chenchen Bao, Yunsheng Chen, James Curtin, Daxiang Cui

Articles

The application of plasmonic-enhanced Raman imaging of cancer cells and drug delivery is gaining momentum. Here, we propose a new theranostic strategy based on an efficient plasmonic-tunable Raman/Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy imaging, to simultaneously evaluate the anticancer drug scattering cellular imaging and the Raman scattering molecular vibration signals in living cells. This technique allows to monitoring the drug release throughout the cell cycle and in vivo biodistribution and biocompatibility with low dose drug therapy (200 µg/mL) and low toxicity effect. This system can directly track in real-time the delivery and release of an anticancer drug (mitoxantrone, MTX) from gold …

Calcium Phosphate As A Key Material For Socially Responsible Tissue Engineering, Vuk Uskoković, Victoria M. Wu

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Socially responsible technologies are designed while taking into consideration the socioeconomic, geopolitical and environmental limitations of regions in which they will be implemented. In the medical context, this involves making therapeutic platforms more accessible and affordable to patients in poor regions of the world wherein a given disease is endemic. This often necessitates going against the reigning trend of making therapeutic nanoparticles ever more structurally complex and expensive. However, studies aimed at simplifying materials and formulations while maintaining the functionality and therapeutic response of their more complex counterparts seldom provoke a significant interest in the scientific community. In this review …

Polymeric Nanocarriers For Treatment Of Melanoma And Genetically Modified Mesenchymal Stem Cells To Improve Outcome Of Islet Transplantation, Vaibhav Mundra

Theses & Dissertations

Melanoma is a lethal malignancy with limited treatment options for advanced metastatic stages. New targeted therapeutic options with discovery of BRAF and MEK inhibitors have shown significant survival benefit. Despite the recent progress, inefficient tumor accumulation and dose limiting systemic toxicity remains pressing challenges for treating metastatic melanoma and there is a need for drug delivery approach to improve therapeutic index of chemotherapeutics. Nanoparticle based drug delivery represents promising approach to enhance efficacy and reduce the dose limiting systemic toxicity. Nanoparticles can be formulated either by physical encapsulation of drugs or by covalent conjugation of drugs to the polymeric backbone. …

Mdr1 Sirna Loaded Hyaluronic Acid-Based Cd44 Targeted Nanoparticle Systems Circumvent Paclitaxel Resistance In Ovarian Cancer, Xiaoqian Yang, Arun K. Iyer, Amit Singh, Edwin Choy, Francis J. Hornicek, Mansoor M. Amiji, Zhenfeng Duan

Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Publications

Development of multidrug resistance (MDR) is an almost universal phenomenon in patients with ovarian cancer, and this severely limits the ultimate success of chemotherapy in the clinic. Overexpression of the MDR1 gene and corresponding P-glycoprotein (Pgp) is one of the best known MDR mechanisms. MDR1 siRNA based strategies were proposed to circumvent MDR, however, systemic, safe, and effective targeted delivery is still a major challenge. Cluster of differentiation 44 (CD44) targeted hyaluronic acid (HA) based nanoparticle has been shown to successfully deliver chemotherapy agents or siRNAs into tumor cells. The goal of this study is to evaluate the ability of …

Formation Of Lactalbumin Nanoparticles By Desolvation Method, Menglu Gao, Jozef Kokini, Luis Fernando Maldonado-Mejia

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Protein nanoparticles are ideal carriers for bioactive compounds such as nutraceuticals and drugs because they are biodegradable, less immunogenic and non-toxic and can be nanoparticulated. This study focuses on the desolvation method to form lactalbumin protein nanoparticles. Lactalbumin is soluble in water and insoluble in many organic solvents. Different solvent/non-solvent ratios are evaluated in this research project for the effect they have on the size, PDI and stability of protein nanoparticles. Different methods including sonication and centrifugation were used and compared in terms of their effectiveness to produce small nanoparticles during fabrication of the nanoparticles. Data collected including protein nanoparticles …

Bioactivity And Cell-Mediated Targeting Of Multistage Nanoporous Silicon Particles, Jonathan O. Martinez

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Progress in drug delivery approaches have not adequately translated into clinical advances in the diagnosis or treatment of inflammatory disorders (e.g., cancer). This disconnect is rooted in the inefficient delivery of imaging and therapeutic agents to the inflamed site upon systemic delivery. A multitude of biological barriers pose insurmountable obstacles limiting the ability of the agent to effectively reach and accumulate at the target site. Nanoparticles (NP) surfaced as potential vectors to encapsulate and deliver biological agents. However, even after surface decoration, NP have failed to evade biological barriers (i.e., MPS) and to accumulate at the tumor site at therapeutic …

Nano-Biomedical Approaches Of Cancer Therapy Using Carbon Based And Magnetic Nanomaterials, Alokita Karmakar

Theses and Dissertations

Since the inception of nanoparticles, they have affected almost each and every field of modern science and technology both in terms of research and application. Due to its subcellular level size and ease of modification for biological and medical purposes, nanoparticles have contributed greatly in various field of biomedical reaserch including cancer research. In this dissertation, emphasis has been given on an important area of research of a multi-modal anticancer therapeutic approach using carbon-based and magnetic inorganic nanoparticles. Cancer is a complex disease that has been known to be generated by mutations at the genetic level, and continue to accumulate …