Beyond Albumin-Hitchhiking: Rational Design of Drug Amphiphiles

Haipeng Liu

Wayne State

Thursday, March 21, 2019 - 11:30am

Lederle Graduate Research Center 1634

Amphiphilic polymer drug/vaccine conjugates have been designed to ‘hitchhike’ on endogenous albumin protein to enhance the drug molecules’ circuiting time and specific organ targeting. However, the fundamental understanding of the molecular and biological factors that determine cellular uptake, intracellular trafficking, organelle retention, and biological effects of these amphiphilic drugs remains unclear. In this talk, examples of amphiphilic drugs including peptide antigens, anticancer chemo drugs, and immune modulating oligonucleotides will be described and their mechanisms of action as well as biological functions will be discussed. These examples illustrate how fundamental principles in chemistry and engineering can be applied to the design and optimization of drug/vaccine formulations, providing new insights in the field of drug design and delivery.

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