NanoCenterw - nanoTherapeutics

Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials

 

Hope in the war against Cancer


 

Cancer is one of the most dreaded diseases to afflict humanity. During our lifetimes, most of us will know at least one person that is diagnosed with cancer. Remarkable progress has been made in the last few decades in our fight against the one hundred or more diseases that make up what we know as cancer. Yet, cancer remains one of the gravest threats to human health.


The simple fact is that any specific form of the disease and its progression can be quite different for any given person. The program at WFU NanoCenter focuses on the development of novel "smart" approaches to cancer that can be tailored to the individual. Here are a few of our activities...


Our Smart nanoTherapeutics for Cancer Program is based on novel routes to localized hyperthermia.  Hyperthermia destroys tumor tissues through the direct application of heat.  The diseased tissue that is heated to above about 52 C dies and do does the disease. The challenge is to get only a small volume of tissue within the body to this temperature without heating the surrounding and killing healthy tissue. Our approach is to device nano-”robots” that can deliver heat where desired, along with other payloads like traditional cancer drugs. This work is still in very early stages, but animal studies have been promising. 


For more information: visit the webpages of the researchers

Addressing MRSA...









Microorganism resistance to our front line antibiotic protections is a frightening and fast growing problem. Once organisms develop resistance, they can survive in the body nearly indefinitely and infections will return time and again ultimately causing death. Researchers at NanoCenter together with the Orthopaedics Department at WFBMC, are working to  characterize glycocalyx-related  susceptibility phenomena in bacterial colonies.  We are specifically interested in properties of antibiotic resistance, adhesiveness, and metabolic function that may be tied to biofilm formation by bacteria.  We apply Nano-characterization such as AFM, and NSOM, to understand local visco-elastic, adhesion, and rupture properties of bacterial biofilms. With these tools, we are designing a new set of therapeutics that deliver heat (as in the case of cancer) and drug to kill the bacteria and prevent the rise in infection.