Seminar: Low-Intensity Pulsed Ultrasound (LIPUS)-Mediated Delivery of Drug-Loaded GoldNanoparticles: Multilayer In Vitro Cell Culture Study

Student: Chanhee Lee

Supervisors: Dr. Jahan Tavakkoli 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 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 MLCCs enhanced by LIPUS. Currently, three experimental trials of MLCCs have been performed. Preliminary results show multilayer growth of cells with an average height of approximately 33.89 um. Optimizations are being done to produce these results with an average height of 150 um. Some trials exhibited difficulty in cell attachment. Cell growth was evident, however, cells were suspended in media and did not clump. This is suspected to be due to collagen concentration. Some trials also showed little to no cell growth. Cells did not grow past monolayer level and this is suspected to be due to inadequate circulation of media leading to oxygen deprivation in cells.