Seminar: Low-Intensity Pulsed Ultrasound (LIPUS)-Mediated Delivery of Drug-Loaded Gold Nanoparticles: Monolayer and Multilayer In Vitro Cell Culture Studies

Student: Chanhee Lee

Supervisors: Dr. Jahan Tavvakoli and Dr. Michael Kolios

Abstract

Chemotherapy is a method of cancer treatment that revolves around administering anticancer drugs. These drugs are injected into the bloodstream where they accumulate into tumors to kill and prevent further proliferation. To this aim, anticancer drugs must penetrate the extravascular space of the tumor in sufficient quantities. Unfortunately, many barriers in the tumor microenvironment prevent drugs from efficient penetration. To address these issues, our lab has developed a drug delivery system that uses gold nanoparticles (GNPs) as drug carriers into monolayer and multilayer cell cultures (MLCCs) aided by low-intensity pulsed ultrasound (LIPUS). LIPUS has previously been shown to have potential in drug delivery and release due to thermal and non-thermal mechanisms. As a result, LIPUS, GNPs, and drugs will be coupled to test cell killing effects which will later be quantified through the use of MTT assay and flow cytometry. Tests will be done on monolayer and MLCCs to replicate the in vivo tumor microenvironment. The focus of this work is to test and quantify the ability of anticancer drugs in cell killing on monolayer and multilayer cell cultures enhanced by LIPUS.