Event
Special Biongineering Seminar: Andrew Goodwin
Monday, December 5, 2011
11:00 a.m.
1105 Jeong H. Kim Eningeering Building
Professor Helim Aranda-Espinoza
helim@umd.edu
Engineering Stimulus-Responsive Materials for Medicine
Andrew Goodwin
Department of Nanoengineering and
UCSD Moores Cancer Center
University of California, San Diego
This seminar will highlight our work creating new materials and assemblies capable of responding to ambient and external stimuli as new technologies for healthcare. Early detection and safe therapeutics are two of the most effective means of combating deadly diseases such as heart disease or cancer. Advances in these areas will require improvements in target specificity so that only the diseased areas are sensed and treated, sparing the rest of the patient from background signal and toxic drugs. This talk will highlight our recent activities in creating smart materials that respond to local chemical environments or external energy sources. In one example, hydrophobic molecules were sequestered inside micelles containing a photoreactive tail group. In the presence of both UV and near-infrared light, the micelles fell apart and liberated the cargo in a small, contained region. In another example, ultrasound contrast agents were created that could change their contrast properties only in the presence of specific biomolecules. These oligonucleotide-coated microbubbles remained dormant under normal conditions but became visible only in the presence of diseased regions. This facile, clinical method to detect diseased regions in the body required only inexpensive equipment and safe contrast agents. These projects represent a multidisciplinary approach encompassing bioengineering, chemistry, chemical engineering, electrical engineering, and biology.
