2016 Gaden Memorial Lecture

Sep 26 2016

The Department of Chemical Engineering at Columbia University is pleased to announce The Tenth Annual Gaden Memorial Lecture: Nanolayered Drug Release Systems for Regenerative Medicine and Targeted Nanotherapies presented by Professor Paula Hammond. This lecture will be taking place on Tuesday, October 4, 2016 at 4:00pm in the Davis Auditorium.

Paula Hammond is the David H. Koch Professor of Engineering and the Department Head of the Chemical Engineering Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as a member of MIT's Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. Her research in nanotechnology encompasses the development of new biomaterials to enable drug delivery from surfaces with spatial and temporal control. She investigates novel responsive polymers for targeted nanoparticle drug and gene delivery. Professor Hammond was elected into the 2013 Class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

Abstract:  Alternating electrostatic assembly is a tool that makes it possible to create ultrathin film coatings that contain highly controlled quantities of one or more therapeutic molecules within a singular construct.   These release systems greatly exceed the usual ranges of traditional degradable polymers, ranging from 10 to as high as 40 wt% drug loading within the film.   The nature of the layering process enables the incorporation of different drugs within different regions of the thin film architecture; the result is an ability to uniquely tailor both the independent release profiles of each therapeutic, and the order of release of these molecules to the targeted region of the body.    We demonstrate the use of this approach to release or present signaling molecules such as growth factors and  siRNA and DNA to regulate genes to facilitate tissue regeneration in-situ, address soft tissue wound healing, deliver vaccines from microneedle surfaces, or administer targeted nanotherapies that are highly synergistic for cancer treatments. 

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