Associate Professor Bruce Yu
Joint appointment with the School of Pharmacy, University of Maryland Baltimore
Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University, 1996.
E-mail: byu@rx.umaryland.edu
Fischell Department of Bioengineering (College Park) contact information:
Room 1130 Jeong H. Kim Engineering Building
Phone: (301) 405-2829
School of Pharmacy (Baltimore) contact information:
Room 635 Health Sciences Facility II
Phone: (410) 706-7514
Fax: (410) 706-5017
Research Interests
Dr. Yu's research falls into two categories: the engineering of mechanosensors to aid the repair and rehabilitation of injured musculoskeletal tissues, and the delivery of radiopharmaceuticals for cancer therapy. In both cases, he is developing materials and processes that would allow doctors to monitor patients in real time and without surgery.
Mechanosensors measure mechanical forces in the human body, providing doctors with information used to guide the treatment and repair of musculoskeletal tissue damage. Currently, they are made of metals, ceramics and plastics. Surgery is required both to implant and retrieve them. Dr. Yu's goal is to develop soft, force-sensitive materials that can be injected into a patient’s body. Their reactions to conditions at injury sites would be recorded in a force-response profile, measured non-invasively by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). After measurements are taken, the mechanosensors would degrade automatically and harmlessly, so no surgery would be needed.
Currently, Dr. Yu is developing force-sensitive nanofiber networks (FSNN). FSNN are made of pliable biomaterials (peptides and their derivatives), so that they are both injectable and biodegradable. Magnetic probes that can be detected by MRI are embedded in the FSNN. It was Yu's work in this area that earned him NIH funding and the PECASE award.
For the delivery of radiopharmaceuticals—drugs that carry radionuclides as part of radiation therapy for cancer—Dr. Yu is developing fluorocarbon nanoparticles as multifunctional delivery vehicles. His approach is to integrate MRI with targeted therapy, allowing doctors to guide monitor radiopharmaceuticals in real time, then create individualized treatment plans for cancer patients based on their responses to the medication. This project has received funding from the NIH and the PHRMA Foundation, and earned him the Kimmel Scholar Award.
In both cases, Dr. Yu is trying to develop 1H-19F dual nuclei MRI techniques. If successful, it will help to accurately determine the amount of a drug delivered to a particular site (microdosimetry) or the magnitude of forces experienced by a particular site.
Chemistry is the foundation of Dr. Yu's research. A significant portion his work is devoted to the design and synthesis of new molecules, which form the basis of his new materials and devices.
Top- Kimmel Scholar Award in cancer research (2004)
- Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) for biomaterials research (2005)
Selected Refereed Publications
Giantsos, K.; Dag, S.; Tseng, Y. & Yu, Y.B. (2007) Chain Length and Side Chain Effect on Peptide-based Hydrogel Viscoelastic Properties. Under preparation.
Jiang, Z.-X. & Yu, Y.B. (2007) Mixture Synthesis of Fluorinated Dendron Amphiles with one singlet 19F NMR Signal. To be submitted.
Jiang, Z.-X. & Yu, Y.B. (2007) The Design and Synthesis of Highly Branched and Spherically Symmetric Fluorinated Macrocyclic Chelators. Synthesis, accepted.
Xiao, N.; Jiang, Z.-X. & Yu, Y.B. (2007) Enantioselective Synthesis of (2R, 3S)- and (2S, 3R) -4, 4, 4-trifluoro-N-Fmoc-O-tert-butyl-threonine and their Racemization-free Incorporation into Oligopeptides via Solid-phase Synthesis. Biopolymers (Pept. Sci.), in press.
Jinag, Z.-X. & Yu, Y.B. (2007) The design and synthesis of highly branched and spherically symmetric fluorinated oils and amphiles. Tetrahedron, 63, 3982-3988.
Jiang, Z-X. & Yu, Y.B. (2007) The Synthesis of a Geminally Perfluoro-tert-butylated β-Amino Acid and its Protected Forms as Potential Pharmacokinetic Modulator and Reporter for Peptide-based Pharmaceuticals. J. Org. Chem. 72, 1464-1467.
Yu, Y.B. (2006) Fluorocarbon Nanoparticles as Multifunctional Drug Delivery Vehicles. J. Drug Targeting, 14, 663-669.
Ramachandran, S. & Yu, Y.B. (2006) Peptide-Based Viscoelastic Matrices for Drug Delivery and Tissue Repair. BioDrugs, 20, 263-269.
Ramachandran, S., Trewhella, J., Tseng, Y. & Yu, Y.B. (2006) Coassembling Peptide-Based Biomaterials: Effects of Pairing Equal and Unequal Chain Length Oligopeptides. Chem. Mater. 18, 6157-6162.
Ramachandran, S., Flynn, P., Tseng, Y. & Yu, Y.B. (2005). Electrostatically Controlled Hydrogelation of Oligopeptides and Protein Entrapment. Chem. Mater. 17, 6583-6588.
Ramachandran, S., Tseng, Y. & Yu, Y.B. (2005) Repeated Rapid Shear-Responsiveness of Peptide Hydrogels with Tunable Shear Modulus. Biomacromolecules, 6, 1316-1321.
Wang, W. & Yu, Y.B. (2004) Algorithmic Generation of Freely Jointed Hard Sphere Chains and Properties of their Inertial Tensor. J. Biomol. Struct. Dynam. 21, 805-811.
Flinders, K.T., Flynn, P.L. & Yu, Y.B. (2004) The Effect of a Side Chain-Backbone Swap on Protein Stability. J. Pept. Res. 63, 17-22.
Yu, Y.B. (2003) Comment on "Computational Studies of Enzyme-Catalyzed Reactions: Where Are We in Predicting Mechanisms and in Understanding the Nature of Enzyme Catalysis". J. Phys. Chem. B 107, 1721.
Yu, Y. B. (2002) Coiled-coils: Stability, Specificity, and Drug Delivery Potentials. Adv. Drug Delivery Rev. 54, 1113-1129.
Yu, Y. B. (2001) Standard State and Thermodynamic Self-Consistency. J. Pharm. Sci. 90, 2099-2102.
Yu, Y.B., Privalov, P.L. & Hodges, R.S. (2001) Contribution of Translational and Rotational Motions to Molecular Association in Aqueous Solution. Biophys. J. 81, 1632-1642.
Yu, Y.B., Wagschal, K.C., Mant, C.T. & Hodges, R.S. (2000) Trapping the Monomeric α-Helical State During Unfolding of Coiled-coils by Reversed-Phase Liquid Chromatography. J. Chromatogr. A 890, 81-94.
Yu, Y.B., Lavigne, P., Privalov, P.L. & Hodges, R.S. (1999) The Measure of Interior Disorder in a Folded Protein and its Contribution to Stability. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 121, 8443-8449.
Yu, Y.B. & Wang, W. (1999) Determinant of the Inertial Tensor and Rotational Entropy of Random Polymers. J. Phys. Chem. B 103, 7676-7680.
Yu, Y.B., Lavigne, P., Kay, C.M., Hodges, R.S. & Privalov, P.L. (1999) Contribution of Translational and Rotational Entropy to the Unfolding of a Dimeric Coiled-coil. J. Phys. Chem. B 103, 2270-2278.
Yu, Y., Monera, O.D., Hodges, R.S. & Privalov, P.L. (1996) Investigation of Electrostatic Interactions in Two-Stranded Coiled-coils through Residue Shuffling. Biophys. Chem. 59, 299-314.
Yu, Y., Monera, O.D., Hodges, R.S. & Privalov, P.L. (1996) Ion Pairs Significantly Stabilize Coiled-coils in the Absence of Electrolyte. J. Mol. Biol. 255, 367-372.
Yu, Y., Makhatadze, G. I., Pace, C.N. & Privalov, P.L. (1994) Energetics of Ribonuclease T1 Structure. Biochemistry, 33, 3312-3319.
