The emergence of nanotechnology has spawned new opportunities for novel drug delivery vehicles capable of simultaneous detection, monitoring, and localized treatment of specific disease sites. Recent developments in polymeric drug delivery systems allow for targeted delivery of a wide variety of traditional hydrophobic chemotherapeutic drugs, proteins, and diagnostic gold nanoparticles. In the Peppas group we have developed a new class of micro- and nanocarriers composed of pH- or temperature- responsive grafted hydrogel networks that can be tailored to deliver drugs to a targeted site, efficiently. We have demonstrated the ability to load a variety of chemotherapeutic agents and/or gold nanoparticles, into the synthesized particles for the development of theranostic carrier systems. Using these particles, the biophysical mechanisms controlling biodistribution of the hydrophobic chemotherapeutic drug doxorubicin, protein based chemotherapeutic agent Interferon alpha, and imaging modalities like gold nanoparticles, are under investigation for the treatment of colon and pancreatic cancer.

Environmentally responsive theranostic carrier systems for oral delivery of chemotherapeutic agents

247th National Meeting (2014)

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