Assistant Investigator Gordon Center for Medical Imaging, Mass General Research Institute

Assistant Professor of Radiology Harvard Medical School

drug delivery systems; image guided surgery; nanobiotechnology; nanomedicine; tissue-specific targeted fluorophores; tumor targeted nir flurophores

My research interests center around an understanding in vivo transport and nano-bio interactions of theranostic nanoparticles (NPs) in the body for diagnosis, staging, and treatment of human diseases. I have a broad and unique background in the field of nanomedicine and drug delivery, and recently developed original ideas for biomedical applications. As a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School, working with our collaborator Dr. Jean-Luc Coll (Program Director of Cancer Targets and Experimental Therapeutics) at the University of Grenoble-Alpes in France, we have created renal clearable organic nanocarriers for targeting and drug delivery to gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST). We have precisely defined the hydrodynamic diameter, surface charges, mass-to-charge ratio, and elimination kinetics that permit nanoparticles for renal clearance. These results have been published in a top-ranked materials chemistry journal (Advanced Materials, 2016 and 2020), which will likely have a major impact on the design of biocompatible delivery vehicles for anticancer drugs. After I took a faculty position at MGH, in collaboration with Dr. Kim at Northeastern University, we have been studying the relationship among the size, charge, lipophilicity, and pharmacokinetics of nanoparticles for iron chelation therapy. Based on the results, we have developed ultrasmall iron nanochelators that could capture iron from the body, without distributing to off-target tissue, and leave the body through urinary excretion (Nature Communications, 2019). These nanochelators distribute rapidly into deep target tissues, bind strongly to free iron in the blood and tissues, and quickly clear to the urinary bladder without redistribution.