Nanomedicine

This resource from the nephro-HUB combines Northwestern University's groundbreaking research in nanocarrier technology with contributions from our collaborators at USC.

Precisely designed nanocarriers have opened a new frontier in drug delivery technologies for a wide variety of therapeutics, ranging from small molecular drugs, peptides, and proteins, to genes. The ability to use targeted nanotechnology-based drug/payload delivery systems improves the therapeutic index of drugs and permits greater control over their pharmacokinetics, biodistribution, and bioavailability (Vincent et al., 2022). The Evan Scott lab at Northwestern University has developed and utilized such nanocarriers to answer many fundamental questions in biology/immunology and to provide solutions for unmet conditions. The lab has successfully applied this technology in the fields of immunotherapy, type-1 diabetes, vaccination, glaucoma, and others (Burke et al., 2022). The Eunji Chung Lab at USC has developed and utilized nanocarriers that have been utilized for cardiovascular diseases, cancer including renal cell carcinoma, and genetic and chronic kidney diseases.

These nanocarriers are highly customizable and can be modified based on the application needs. With each new application, the physiochemical properties of the nanocarriers, active or passive targeting strategies, and feasibility/selection of payload can be customized. These new nanotechnologies are increasingly being utilized for the development of precision targeting of therapeutics for kidney-related disorders

Evan Scott, PhD

• Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering
•  evan.scott( at )northwestern.edu

Eun Ji Chung, PhD

• Associate Professor, USC
•  eunchung( at )usc.edu