Event
Bioengineering Seminar Series: Silvia Muro
Friday, September 12, 2008
11:00 a.m.
Room 2108, Chemical and Nuclear Engineering Bldg.
Professor Adam Hsieh
(301) 405-7397
hsieh@umd.edu
Controlled Subcellular Delivery of Therapeutics by Endocytic Transport
Silvia Muro
Fischell Department of Bioengineering, University of Maryland, and
Center for Biosystems Research, University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute
Most therapeutics lack intrinsic affinity to any particular tissue, cell type, or sub-cellular compartment, which results in their rapid clearance, inefficient transport to the target disease-site, and suboptimal effects. To overcome this obstacle, our group is developing means to target cells located at sites of disease with nano-scale carriers that are able to use endocytic pathways, natural processes where cells engulf substances in their outer membrane and then bring the surrounded materials into their interior. These carriers are being designed to facilitate the transport of the therapeutic agents both intracellularly (e.g, to the cytosol, vesicular compartments such as lysosomes, the nucleus, etc) or across cell layers to penetrate deep into tissues. Parameters under investigation include those intrinsic to the cell targets and endocytic mechanisms utilized (selection of accessible cell surface receptors and mechanisms which shall remain operative during the disease condition, role of signaling molecules, the cytoskeleton and membrane lipid domains in the endocytic event and subsequent intracellular transport and metabolism), as well as parameters pertinent to the design of the delivery carriers utilized (chemical properties, size, shape, affinity to the target, specificity, etc). These general aspects of drug delivery platforms using endocytic transport and particular clinical applications under investigation in our laboratory, will be summarized in the presentation.
There will be pre-seminar refreshments from 10-11 a.m. in Room 2237 of the Jeong H. Kim Engineering Building.
