Announcements

Events

Events

Jelena M. Janjic^1,2,3

September 25, 2:50 pm, Snell Library 125

¹Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Duquesne University School of Pharmacy, Pittsburgh, PA, USA E-mail: janjicj@duq.edu

²Chronic Pain Research Consortium, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

³McGowan Institute of Regenerative Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Theranostic nanoparticles are emerging technology for imaging and drug delivery. The focus of this talk is on theranostic fluorous nanocolloids based on triphasic nanoemulsion formulations (Scheme 1), first reported by our laboratory in 2012, and since expanded into threranostic nanoformulation platform applicable for cancer, inflammation and pain imaging and treatment. Earlier reported perfluorocarbon nanoemulsions were two-phase systems with PFC oil as an internal phase and where the surfactant layer incorporated a drug, dye and/or a targeting agent. (Aikers et al, Nanomedicine 2010, Soman et al, Nano Lett. 2008) Our approach was to introduce a “third” phase – organic (hydrocarbon oil) into the PFC nanoemulsion while maintaining small droplet size (85-140 nm) and polydispersity (PDI<0.15). (O’Hanlon et al, JFluoChem 2012, Mountain et al, JFluo Chem 2014, Patel et al, PLOS One 2013, Janjic et al, Biomaterials 2014) These nanoemulsions are triphasic because they are constituted from three immiscible liquids: PFC (fluorous phase), hydrocarbon (organic phase) and water (aqueous phase). Representative results from in vitro and in vivo studies in multiple animal models will be presented to demonstrate the broad utility of triphasic nanoemulsions as theranostic nanomedicines for inflammatory diseases, injury, and pain. Further, I will discuss unique challenges nanomedicine meets which can hinder future clinical translation and commercialization. Our lab takes earlier established approaches in the wider pharmaceutical industry such as quality by design (QbD) and adapts them to the development and production fluorous colloids nanomedicine. Following these methods, we are able to develop robust processes for scale-up, quality control, and clinical translation. Recent results from these studies will also be presented.