Nanomedicine for Inflammation

gastrointestinalThe cells and tissues of the immune system work together in an intricate and complex way to maintain health. Inflammation is a general term that refers to processes that occur when the immune system responds to a harmful stimulus, such as injury or infection. Although inflammation is vital for maintaining good health, some inflammatory processes have detrimental effects. Nanotechnologies can be designed for prolonged and targeted delivery of anti-inflammatory medications, both increasing effectiveness and decreasing negative side effects. Nanotechnologies can also be designed to specifically target activated immune cells, delivering specifically to these cells and otherwise being safely removed from the body. In other instances, nanoparticles can be designed to be mimetic of inflammatory cells, allowing for targeting to inflamed tissues. Because the immune system plays a significant role in many diseases and conditions, but also is of utmost importance in maintaining day-to-day health, we always design our nanotechnology platforms with the immune system in mind. In many cases, our nanotechnologies are designed to be non-inflammatory, so that they do not contribute to the problem. In other cases, such as vaccines, we design our nanotechnology platform to interact with the immune system in a beneficial way.

Disease Focus Areas

  • Inflammation in eye diseases, including age-related macular degeneration (AMD), diabetic retinopathy (DR), uveitis, and many others.
  • Uterine inflammation that leads to birth-related defects and neurological disorders such as cerebral palsy and autism spectrum disorder.
  • Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)
  • Fibrotic diseases
  • Atherosclerosis
  • Arthritis

Selected Publications

Kannan S, Dai H, Navath RS, Balakrishnan B, Jyoti A, Janisse J, Romero R, Kannan RM. (2012) Dendrimer-Based Postnatal Therapy for Neuroinflammation and Cerebral Palsy in a Rabbit Model, Sci Transl Med, 4(130):130ra46.

Iezzi R, Guru BR, Glybina IV, Mishra MK, Kennedy A, Kannan RM. (2012) Dendrimer-based targeted intravitreal therapy for sustained attenuation of neuroinflammation in retinal degeneration, Biomaterials, 33(3): 979-988.

Kim TH, Swierczewska M, Oh Y, Kim A, Jo DG, Park JH, Byun Y, Sadegh-Nasseri S, Pomper MG, Lee KC, Lee S. (2013) Mix to validate: a facile, reversible PEGylation for fast screening of potential therapeutic proteins in vivo, Angew Chem Int Ed, 52(27): 6880-4.

Deosarkar SP, Malgor R, Fu J, Kohn LD, Hanes J, Goetz DJ. (2008) Polymeric Particles Conjugated with a Ligand to VCAM-1 Exhibit Selective, Avid and Focal Adhesion to Sites of Atherosclerosis, Biotechnol Bioeng, 101(2):400-407.