Eman Haidari , IT/CBS 2007
Targeted Drug Delivery With Functionalized Liposomes
Major
Chemistry/Genetics, Cell Biology and Development
Mentors
Efie Kokkoli, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Brief Bio
I graduated in May 2007 with degrees in chemistry and genetics, cell biology and development. My interests include basketball, camping, plays, comedy and skiing.
Future Plans
I'm taking a year off to travel and then plan on doing an MD/PhD in neuroscience.
Why Research?
I started doing research to gain experience in a field I was interested in to figure out what I wanted to do. I continued because not only did I gain in-depth knowledge of current research, but I learned a lot of skills that will be useful in the future.
What Did I Get from Research?
A lot. Not only did I learn a lot, but I learned how to think critically and become a better problem solver. Also, graduate students and professors are an invaluable resource.
How Did I Start?
I received a freshman research scholarship, so I knew I had to find someone to do research with. At the time, I was taking chemical engineering courses and decided this was the best area to pursue for a research project. I went on the CEMS website and read about various research areas. I was extremely interested in biology, so this narrowed my options down to a few profs. I emailed a few and met with them in person to talk about their research. In the end, Efie's lab seemed like the most interesting project.
I started out with a scholarship for the first semester, but I continued to work in lab for the next year and a half without pay. I received directed research credit for a semester.
My Advice for Another Student:
Definitely go for it. It is a great experience and can help you to determine what areas you are interested in. If nothing else, you will just realize what you don't want to do. Not only is it important to find a area that you are interested in, but the professor is extremely important. You will learn the most from a professor that has time to sit down and talk to you often and give you advice and feedback on a regular basis. One way you can see this is by meeting with the professor beforehand and see how willing they are to sit down and talk.
Research Summary
Traditional drug delivery techniques have run into difficulties, due to the necessity for large drug doses resulting from the accumulation of drugs in the body at undesirable locations, and the corresponding side-effects of such large doses. To overcome these problems, researchers can develop targeted drug delivery systems (TDDS), which aim to specifically deliver drugs to the pathological site. A targeted drug delivery system involves a route of administration, a target molecule that is predominantly expressed at the pathological site, and a carrier for the drug with a targeting ligand attached that specifically binds to the target. Such a system increases the specificity of the drug for the pathological site, thereby decreasing the likelihood that the drug will accumulate in undesirable locations.
Various drug delivery systems have been designed over the years. A significant amount of research has focused on modified liposomes as a means of targeted drug delivery. Liposomes are phospholipid bilayer vesicles capable of transporting both hydrophilic and hydrophobic drugs. They are biocompatible and have the ability to self-assemble. Moreover, their size, bilayer rigidity, surface, and charge can be modified to control biological properties. Targeting with liposomes is achieved by the addition of site-targeting ligands (peptides) to the surface of the liposomes.
My research focused on liposome-based targeted drug delivery systems targeting the integrin α5β1. The α5β1 integrin functions in binding to fibronectin (an extra-cellular matrix protein), which results in cell adhesion and spreading. Expression levels of integrin α5β1 are up-regulated on tumor cells, and antagonists of integrin α5β1 are capable of inhibiting tumor proliferation. Thus, targeting of integrin α5β1 is a promising strategy for treatment of cancer.
Our work consisted of designing the targeted drug delivery system, as well as determining assays and methods to characterize and optimize this system. Targeting of the integrin α5β1 was shown to be successful by both flow cytometry and confocal microscopy techniques, and the results have been submitted.
Garg, A., A. Wedekind, E. Haidari, A. Mardilovich, E. Kokkoli. Integrin α5β1 Targeted Delivery to Colon Cancer Cells. (Submitted)