In recent years, significant effort has been devoted to developing nanotechnology for the delivery of small molecular weight drugs, as well as macromolecules such as proteins, peptides, or genes into cells and tissue. Targeted nanoparticle-mediated drug delivery has been used to direct particles to specific tissues (minimizing toxicity), improve oral bioavailability, sustain drug/gene effects in the target tissue, solubilize drugs for intravascular delivery, and/or improve the stability of therapeutic agents against enzymatic degradation.

Despite the remarkable potential of nanoparticles in medicine, fundamental studies aimed at understanding the molecular interactions between nanoparticles and biological systems remain largely unexplored.

In this lecture, the speaker will discuss how engineered nanoparticles can be exploited as tools to probe cellular processes, identify targets responsible for tumor growth and therapy resistance, and contribute to potential clinical translation.