Dr. Sandro R. P. da Rocha, from Wayne State University will be offering a lecture titled “Dendrimer Nanocarriers and their Aerosol Formulations: New Opportunities for the Regional and Systemic Delivery of Drugs to and through the Lungs”.
Date: March 20, 2015
Time: 10:30 am – 12:00 pm
Place: INQU 004 – Amphitheater
Abstract:
The ability to modulate the transport of therapeutics across the pulmonary epithelium is expected to provide new opportunities in terms of improving the treatment of regional lung diseases, and also in the development of new strategies for the systemic delivery of therapeutics, including small molecules and biologicals, through the lungs, using the oral inhalation (OI) route. The lungs are an attractive pathway to the bloodstream as they have a large surface area, consist of a thin cellular barrier, and have lower proteolytic activity compared to those observed in traditional delivery routes. In this presentation, we will discuss the effect of the surface chemistry of polyamidoamine dendrimers on their cellular internalization and transport across in vitro and in vivo models of the pulmonary epithelium, and their formulation in portable inhalers. We employ a range of experimental and computational tools to probe the system at various size scales, from atomic to molecular to nano and micron, in order to design the nanocarriers and the formulations. We will discuss some of the potential applications of these carriers, including in the formulation of carriers for siRNA, anti-cancer therapeutics, and targeting of intra-cellular organelles such as mitochondria.