Dr. Manliang Feng
Associate Professor of Chemistry, Tougaloo College
Developing Polypeptide-based Multi-Functional Drug Carriers for Targeted and Image-Guided Drug Delivery
Controlled and localized drug delivery is the key for effective therapy with minimal side effects. Early stage diagnosis and accurate assessment of the drug delivery efficiency and timely assessment of the therapeutic response are also critical for disease treatment. One of the therapies that particularly demand controlled and localized drug deliveries is the treatment of cancers as toxicity to normal cell and poor water-solubility of most anticancer drugs hinder the clinical use of these drugs. In the proposed research, we will design functionalized polymers (such as elstin-like polypeptide) with an in-vivo traceable tag that can be used as drug carriers for the localized delivery and controlled release of therapeutic drugs. This research will be incorporated into the biochemistry laboratory to train undergraduate students in biomedical studies.