Xu Xiang
PhD Defense
Doctoral Candidate, Department of Chemistry
Advisor: Dr. Patrica Heiden

Friday July 24, 2015
Memorial Union Ballroom A-1
9:00 a.m.

Novel Drug Delivery Systems: Thermo-responsive drug delivery designs and Multi-drug delivery scaffold designs

Abstract:
This research has three parts: two deal with novel medical devices for drug delivery, and one looks at properties of fish scales as an abundant waste resource that can be modified to have value in medical and other areas. This presentation discusses two novel drug delivery designs, including their synthesis and characterization. These nanoparticle devices address two current challenges in drug delivery. The first is designing a drug-carrier to more efficiently deliver toxic (e.g. chemotherapy) drugs, which harm all cells. So non-specific delivery of the drug is wasteful and harmful to the patient. Knowledge gained from a fundamental study of the effects of polymer architecture (linear amphiphilic diblock and triblock copolymers and star copolymers) and end group polarity, on thermally triggered drug delivery led to selecting two diblock copolymers to assemble into novel gold-core hybrid nanoparticles. These nanoparticles were tested for their ability to reduce low temperature release and efficiently release the drug at a triggered temperature. The second drug delivery system extended the capabilities of a new type of tissue support device (a scaffold) by showing that the system can independently control the simultaneous release of different drugs, and that the spatial distribution of these drugs within the device, called a “nanoparticle fiber”, can be controlled. Three different model drugs were assembled and their release proven, within the nanoparticle fiber. This work succeeded in yielding a novel, flexible, and robust system of assembled fibers of nanoparticles that could independently control the release of multiple drugs.