Uncovering the Favorable and Unfavorable Interplays Between Nanostructured Materials and Cells for the Development of Nanomedicines

The applications of nanoscience and nanotechnology in biomedical fields are currently growing at a feverish pace, leading to the rapid development of nanomedicines and the gradual diversification of the traditional biotechnology realms. In this talk, I will describe my research over the last five years at the nano-bio interface which has focused on utilizing fundamental nanochemistry to tackle problems in biology and medicine. I will specifically discuss systematic toxicity assays of various nanomaterials at both cellular and subcellular levels through a combination of analytical methods, and demonstrate how these findings shed light on the correlations between the physiochemical properties of nanomaterials and their biocompatibility. The applications of various nanostructured materials will then be presented, especially those that were found to be biocompatible, including mesoporous silica nanoparticledelivered platinum drugs for enhanced pharmaceutical effects, surface functionalization of superaligned carbon nanotube thin films for primary cell cultures, and organic fluorophore-doped polymer nanoparticles for near-infrared bioimaging.