Novel Dendrimer Nanostructures for Selective Cellular Targeting and Drug Delivery

About the event

Advances in Immunology & Microbiology Seminar Series, College of Veterinary Medicine

The Advances in Immunology & Microbiology seminar series is a weekly forum that brings together scientists from diverse fields and disciplines across the College of Veterinary Medicine to discuss research advances in the broad areas of immunology, microbiology, infectious diseases, and global health. Seminars feature student speakers from the Immunology & Infectious Disease (IID) doctoral program, IID-affiliated postdoctoral researchers and faculty, intramural speakers from across the university, and extramural speakers.

PRESENTER: Dr. Anjali Sharma, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, Washington State University

TITLE: Novel Dendrimer Nanostructures for Selective Cellular Targeting and Drug Delivery

ABSTRACT: Poor transport of therapeutics across various physiological barriers limits the development of effective treatments for central nervous system (CNS) disorders, cancer, and beyond. The primary challenge is achieving clinically relevant exposure of therapeutics at the site of injury, which is often difficult to access due to hard to cross physiological barriers, such as the blood brain barrier. Another challenge lies in selectively delivering drugs, like a magic bullet, to diseased cells (such as cancer cells) or sub-cellular locations without impacting healthy cells or tissues, to enhance the efficacy of drugs and reduce systemic side-effects. Dendrimer nanoparticles have various attributes of this ‘magic bullet’ if designed rationally based on the disease pathology. This talk will provide insights into the ongoing research conducting in the Sharma Lab focusing on the development of disease-directed, rationally designed, and clinically translatable nanostructures capable of crossing multiple biological barriers to deliver therapies to targeted locations.