Principal Investigator Paula Hammond
Project Website http://web.mit.edu/hammond/lab/zhao.htm
Polymeric micelles are attractive delivery carriers for a variety of payloads, such as cancer therapeutics and imaging agents. These micelles are expected to increase the accumulation of guest molecules in tumor tissues through either passive targeting or active targeting. To effectively target the tumor tissues, the micelles must retain their integrity during in vivo circulation in order to accumulate at targeted sites. However, most of the current systems, such as Pluronic, PEG-PCL and PEG-PLGA, lack kinetic stability and dissociate rapidly after intravenous injection. My research focus is to use chemical and supramolecular approaches to enhance the stability of micelles based on poly(ethylene glycol)-b-poly(amino acid)s and achieve tunable and sustained drug release profile.