Design and Evaluation of Nanoscale Drugs for Glioblastoma.

Lotte and John Hecht Memorial Foundation

Design and Evaluation of Nanoscale Drugs for Glioblastoma.

Goals

The main goal of this project is to develop and evaluate the efficacies of nanosclae drugs that can simulataneously arrest glioblastoma cell proliferation and stimulate the immune system to arrest the disease.

Issues Involved or Addressed

Natural products known to have efficacy for gliobalstoma will be incorporated into monodisperse silica nanoaprticles and silane analogs. Established human cell line LN-229 will be treated with different doses of these nanoparticle drugs and the expression levels of key oncogenes will be monitored to determine if growth and proliferation of these cells is arrested. Factors such as time of treatment, dosage, and nanoaprticle size will be studied to determine the optimum conditions. Additionally the SN-K-AS T-cell immune cells will be treated with these drugs to determine their efficacies for promoting the activity of the immune cells. The effect of the nanoscale drugs on the combined population of LN-229 gliobalstoma and SN-K-As T-cells will be evlauted to understand their efficacies for stimulating the immue system to combat gliobalstoma. These in vitro studies are useful models for determining the therapeutic efficacies of nanoscale drugs for gliblastoma treatment.

Methods and Technologies

  • Nanoparticle synthesis and characterization
  • Synthesizing drug-nanoparticle composites
  • Mammalian cell cultures
  • Gene expression levels by quantitative PCR.
  • Optica spectroscopy
  • Optical microscopy

Academic Majors of Interest

  • Biochemistry
  • Molecular biology
  • Biomedical Engineering
  • Physics
  • Psychology
  • Chemistry

Preferred Interests and Preparation

Students interested in studying molecular level characterization of drug-cancer cell interaction and performing genetic analysis. Basic knowledge of biochemistry and molecular biology principles and techniques is beneficial.

Team Advisors

Sponsor(s)

Lotte and John Hecht Memorial Foundation