CAREER: Pathways to in situ Medication: Liposomal Encapsulation, Transport in Microchannels and Delivery via Liposomal Membrane Crumpling

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Abstract:The main treatments of tumoral diseases such as cancer are radiation, which can be damaging to healthy organs or surgery, which can be disfiguring. While with chemotherapy only a small fraction of the administered dose reaches the site whilst the rest is distributed throughout the body which limits the dosage and prevents the method from achieving its function of curing. The objective of the proposed research is to develop and study a system whereby cell-like objects (liposomes) are filled with a drug, transported in microchannels and are induced, by temperature, to deliver the payload at precise locations. The project involves experimental and theoretical work at the forefront of research on the behavior of biological materials where solid mechanics, fluid mechanics and material sciences meet. This will be a cooperative effort with the diagnostic group of the Hospital Products Division at Abbott Laboratories.This problem will necessitate the creation of new directions in mechanical sciences to treat various cases of deformation of liposomes: Instability-induced deformation of large tubes to create small spherical vesicles. Flow induced deformations during the transport of drug-laden liposomes and temperature-induced deformations during the delivery of the drug. These ideas lay in the coupling of elasticity with hydrodynamics. Experimentally we will use fluorescence microscopy to monitor the local state of the liposomes and we will use nano-indentation to probe mechanical properties of the liposomes. Techniques in microfibration will be developed to study the transport of these objects in microchannels.This research project will be integrated with a curriculum being developed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign such as the newly developed graduate program in bioengineering and the secondary option of biomechanics newly introduced by the PI in the department of mechanics. The main interest of this course is the study of cell and tissue mechanics where biologists are exposed to engineering methods and engineering students are exposed to protocols of cell biology.