Developing image-guided drug delivery agents for cancer therapies and early diagnostics to improve visualization of tumors and reduce toxicity to healthy cells.
Despite rapid advances in early diagnostics and treatments, cancer remains one of the deadliest diseases – killing over 1500 Americans each day. This is the driving force for new cancer therapies and early diagnostics to enhance the clinical outcome of cancer patients. Of significant interest to the cancer community are image-guided drug delivery (IGGD) agents that probe tumor-drug interactions as well as track delivery and distribution of drugs and imaging agents. IGGD agents would replace chemotherapies, which affect the whole body systematically when administered, leading to toxicity. Recent nanotechnology advances have led to the development of nanocarriers/nanoimaging agents for tracking site-directed drug delivery and therapeutic response. These IGGD platforms hold tremendous potential but have translational limitations that must be overcome for clinical implementation including in vivo stability, localization in the body, and toxicity. Our focus is the optimization of IGGD design to improve site-directed delivery and biodistribution, and to reduce toxicity to normal cells.