0:00
Hello, everybody.
My name is Homa.
I'm a post-doc research associate in
the chemical engineering department
at Northeastern University in
Boston where my today talk is going
to cover my PhD thesis which was
about protoporphyrin IX conjugated
self-lighting nanoparticle
for photodynamic therapies
in synthesis and characterization.
This research was done in joint
biomedical engineering program
in the University of Texas
at Arlington and University
of Texas Southwestern
Medical Center in Dallas
under supervision of
Professor Wei Chen
from the Department of Physics
in the University of Texas
at Arlington.
0:45
The reason we focused on
cancer during this research
was that cancer is the
second leading cause
of death in the United States.
Cancer statistics of the
United States in 2010 and 2012
confirm more than one and half a
million new cancer cases, and more
than half a million deaths.
Cancer is a term used
for diseases in which
abnormal cells develop
without control
and are able to
invade other tissues.
Cancer cells can spread
to other parts of the body
through the blood and lymph system.
When a tumor becomes malignant,
then it becomes cancer.
1:26
All available current treatments
unfortunately are suffering
from very bad side effects.
For example, in chemotherapy,
all the drugs have been designed
to kill fast growing cancer cell.
But at the same time,
they are able to kill fast
growing healthy cell,
like those located
in hair, in mouth, in GI tract.
These drugs also are able to affect
a number of white blood cells.
For another exam in
radiation therapy,
radiation is able to
damage DNA of healthy cell
to cause secondary cancer.
So to get rid of all of
these unwanted side effects,
photodynamic therapy has been
introduced as a clinical approach.
And its limitation is only
photosensitivity reaction
and swelling in the treated area.
