{"id":18580,"date":"2014-02-04T19:47:38","date_gmt":"2014-02-04T19:47:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/?p=18580"},"modified":"2014-02-04T19:47:38","modified_gmt":"2014-02-04T19:47:38","slug":"uri-professor-lands-1-3-million-for-nanoparticle-cancer-treatment-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/2014\/02\/04\/uri-professor-lands-1-3-million-for-nanoparticle-cancer-treatment-3\/","title":{"rendered":"URI professor lands $1.3 million for nanoparticle cancer treatment"},"content":{"rendered":"

< Previous Article <\/a>| <\/span>Next Article ><\/a><\/p>\n

\"newsletter-headerwinter14\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

Wei Lu<\/a> Awarded $1.3 Million for
\nNanoparticle Cancer Treatment<\/span><\/h1>\n

\"lu\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI am very grateful for this support, without which I could not have gotten this major federal funding.\u201d – Wei Lu<\/h3>\n

 
\nThe National Institutes of Health has awarded $1.3 million to University of Rhode Island researcher Wei Lu<\/a><\/strong> to study the application of inorganic nanoparticles in the treatment of cancer.
\nLu, an assistant professor of biomedical and pharmaceutical sciences in the URI College of Pharmacy, has discovered through preliminary research that hollow copper-sulfide nanoparticles \u2013 one-thousandth the width of a human hair \u2013 effectively deliver chemotherapy and heat through a laser that can burn the tumor away.
\nLaser treatments of cancerous tumors, called photothermal ablation therapy, previously required high levels of laser exposure to burn and kill a tumor. Over the last decade, however, inorganic nanoparticles were introduced to the process in animal tests. Inorganic nanoparticles, like the copper-sulfide nanoparticles used in Lu\u2019s study, better absorb the laser light and generate greater heat, therefore lowering the laser doses necessary to kill a tumor.
\n\u201cOne nanoparticle can carry hundreds or even thousands of drug molecules to a target like a tumor cell,\u201d said Lu. \u201cWe are developing a novel cancer therapeutic technology that has several innovative features: biodegradability, multimodality and simplicity.\u201d
\nThe four-year NIH grant will support Lu\u2019s continued research with a focus on breast cancer. Lu\u2019s study could improve existing nanotechnology, which has been shown to produce inconsistent results due to the uneven distribution of heat throughout a tumor. Near-infrared laser light, which Lu has used for his research, penetrates tumor tissue more effectively than ultraviolet or visible light, Lu said.
\nIn addition, while some types of nanoparticles \u2013 such as gold particles \u2013 can leave toxic traces in the body after a laser treatment, Lu\u2019s copper-sulfide nanoparticles are readily biodegradable and minimize potential toxic damage to organs, he said.
\nLu\u2019s research colleague, Bingfang Yan<\/a><\/strong>, is a specialist in drug response and tumor formation and the chair of the URI department of biomedical and pharmaceutical sciences<\/a><\/strong>. While Lu works on the application of nanoparticle therapy, Yan focuses on the toxicology of how the nanoparticles are eliminated from the body after treatment.
\nLu, who came to URI in 2010, said he could not have competed for the NIH award if it weren\u2019t for the support of the Idea Network of Biomedical Research Excellence, a $45 million initiative funded by NIH and headed by URI to increase research capacity among biomedical faculty in Rhode Island.
\n\u201cThe program supported my research for three years, which allowed me to develop my preliminary findings,\u201d Lu said. \u201cI am very grateful for this support, without which I could not have gotten this major federal funding.\u201d
\nLu and Yan will work with post-doctoral fellows, graduate students and undergraduates from URI\u2019s pharmaceutical sciences program<\/a><\/strong> over the course of the four-year grant.<\/p>\n

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Newsletter Article – Winter 2014 Edition<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

< Previous Article | Next Article > Wei Lu Awarded $1.3 Million for Nanoparticle Cancer Treatment \u201cI am very grateful for this support, without which I could not have gotten this major federal funding.\u201d – Wei Lu   The National Institutes of Health has awarded $1.3 million to University of Rhode Island researcher Wei Lu […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":639,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[251,140],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-grants","category-newsletter-winter2014"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/639"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18580\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}