Controlling Structure and Function of Polymer-Nanoparticle Assemblies for Health Applications

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The treatment of disease is a pressing challenge that touches all Canadians. A vital key to the future of treating all forms of disease is making existing drugs safer and more specific. Targeted drug delivery involves the formulation of drugs with antibodies or nanoparticles to promote their targeting to specific regions of the body (e.g. cancerous tumors), in order to make them more effective with fewer side effects. Polymer nanoparticles are widely studied drug delivery systems which can be highly stable, biocompatible, biodegradable, and capable of encapsulating multiple therapeutic agents, including drugs, gold nanoparticles (GNPs), and DNA, opening up exciting opportunities for therapeutic nanomaterials (nanomedicines). In this proposal, we leverage our unique combined expertise in polymer functionalization of nanoparticles and microfluidic controlled synthesis of polymer nanoparticles, in addition to HQP training opportunities and collaborations enabled by the CREATE program Polymer Nanoparticles for Drug Delivery (PoND), in order to address current research challenges in polymer-based nanomedicines and thus develop exciting new strategies for disease treatment. For example, we will design a single polymer-based nanoplatform for delivering both an anticancer drug and GNPs (which enhance radiation doses) to cancerous tumors at the same time for targeted and powerful combination therapy. This work will also explore a new way of packaging DNA in polymer nanoparticles for gene therapy applications. This approach will provide better protection of the sensitive genetic material before delivery along with selective light-triggered release after delivery, enabling combined gene/drug treatments where selective gene expression increases the cancer sensitivity to the drug for a better overall patient outcome.