At Louisiana State University, the Pennington Biomedical Research Center (PBRC) and the nanofabrication group of the Center for Advanced Microstructures and Devices (CAMD) are developing novel nanotechnologies for cancer diagnosis. In a joint effort, cancer specialists of PBRC, led by Dr. Carola Leuschner, and nanomaterials researchers at CAMD, led by Dr. Challa Kumar, developed magnetite-based nanoparticles with functionalized surfaces to target cancer cells and metastases without being trapped in the organs of the reticulo-endothelial system such as the liver.
The functionalization entity is a hormone ligand that served at the same time as a coating and targeting moiety, rendering these particles superior to others under investigation. The functionalized magnetite nanoparticles (LHRH-SPION) have been found to a) accumulate within the cancer cells with high efficiency and specificity, b) increase the sensitivity of the magnetic resonance image, and c) are non-toxic. Highlights of these technologies are a single step attachment of LHRH to iron oxide nanoparticles leading to 65% intracellular accumulation of particles in breast cancer tumors in vivo. It is the highest percentage of iron oxide particles, reported so far, in breast tumors and was reconfirmed by the TEM and MRI experiments carried out at Princeton University and Duke University. The development of these unique nanoparticles (LHRH-SPIONs) as contrast-enhancing agents was reported in recent publications and patent applications filed. For more information, see our publications in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment (2006), Biomaterials(2005), and Journal of Biomedical Nanotechnology (2005).
Polymeric Micro-Reactors for Synthesis of Nanomaterials
Miniaturization affords a direct means of eliminating local variations in reaction conditions, which is compatible with scale-up through parallel processing or using continuous processes. The CAMD nanofabrication research team is one of the very few focused on developing inexpensive rapid prototype polymeric micro-reactors. Taking advantage of the well-established LIGA (Lithography, Galvanoformung or Electoforming, and Abformung or Molding) technology in CAMD, we have designed and fabricated a prototype based on multilayer fabrication process using SU-8 and PMMA.
A unique bonding capability using differential exposure times is being used to minimize clogging of micro-fluidic channels. One of the major advantages of our fabrication technology is that it is suitable for mass production. A variety of metallic nanomaterials are currently being synthesized in the micro-reactor. Our main goal is to control the sizes, shapes, and crystal structures of nanomaterials synthesized by using polymeric micro-reactors. For more information, see our publications in Chemistry of Materials (2006), Journal of Physical Chemistry B (2005), Journal of Micromachining and Microengineering (2004) and Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (2004)
Novel ‘Nano’ Drug Delivery Systems
In collaboration with various groups such as those from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Baton Rouge, and Institute for Micro Manufacturing, Ruston, our group is working towards developing a unique drug-delivery system that has in-built controlled delivery and multiple site-specificity features, using functionalized magnetic-polymeric nanomaterials.
We are developing synthetic methodologies to bind a variety of biomolecules such as peptides, antibodies, and genes to magnetically sensitive polymeric nanomaterials to study site-specificity & the controlled release of drugs embedded within the polymeric nanomaterials. In vitro as well as in vivo assays are being utilized in order to understand structure-activity relationships. For more information, see our publications in PMSE Preprints (2005), Langmuir (2005) and Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (2004)
Characterization of Electronic and Geometric Properties of Nanomaterials by X-Ray Absorption Spectroscopy(XAS)
One of the most important challenges of nanoscience is to delineate the size, size distribution, shape, crystal structure, and core-shell dependent electronic and geometric properties of nanomaterials to tune specific properties such as magnetism, heat capacity, optical, photoconductivity and charge transfer, electrical, melting point, catalytic by varying the size/shape of the nanomaterials.
Our group is working on using different wet chemical synthetic techniques to prepare a variety of metallic nanomaterials and characterizing them using X-ray absorption and spectroscopic techniques. The availability of the synchrotron radiation based XAS beamline at CAMD is a unique opportunity to investigate the mechanism of formation of nanomaterials using in-situ probes. For more information, see our publications in), Journal of Physical Chemistry B (2005), Journal of Applied Physics (2005), Physica Scripta (2005) and Journal of Nanoparticle Research (2004).
