“Shaping Nanomedicines for Hard-to-Treat Cancers” 

Efstathios (Stathis) Karathanasis, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Case Western Reserve University

Seminar will be made available via videoconference in the Health Sciences Research Building, room E 160 and Technology Enterprise Park, room 104.

The Karathanasis Laboratory for Cancer Nanotechnology focuses on nanomedicine and its translational applications on cancer imaging and therapy. Specifically, our research program exploits the engineerable nature of nanoparticle technology to develop clinically relevant therapeutic and imaging agents for hard-to-treat cancers based on the integration of nanotechnology, oncology, imaging science and cancer biology. Using multimodal in vivo imaging and 3D histological analyses, we study the relation between the design of nanoparticles (e.g., structure, size, shape) and their navigation through different biological processes to extract design parameters that improve the overall in vivo performance of nanomedicines. Taking under consideration that tumors consist of a dynamic microenvironment that undergoes spatiotemporal changes, this feedback resulted in the design of various types of chain-like nanoparticles for targeting the microenvironment of hard-to-reach cancers, such as metastatic disease and invasive brain tumors. In addition to the development of contemporary therapeutic paradigms, our lab develops nanoparticle imaging agents for MRI, CT and nuclear imaging to enable non-invasive in vivo interrogation and highly accurate diagnosis of disease.

Faculty Host: Johnna Temenoff