Presenter：Prof . Liangfang Zhang
University of California, San Diego
Title: Nanotherapeutics and Nanovaccines for theTreatment of Bacterial Infection
Time: 09：30AM, Sept. 23rd
Location: Conference Room B, BLDG 909-1F
Abstract:
Toaddress the waning effectiveness of classical antibiotics treatments,anti-virulence therapies, which aim to disarm pathogens of their virulencefactors, are becoming a compelling strategy against antimicrobial resistance. Theattack of host cell membranes by bacterial pore-forming toxins constitutes amajor virulence paradigm in infectious disease pathogenesis. Herein, I report abroadly applicable, toxin-absorbing nanoparticle platform (also called “toxinnanosponge”) as a new virulence factor-based therapeutic candidate againstinvasive bacterial infections. Consisting of a polymeric nanoparticle corewrapped by natural red blood cell membranes, the toxin nanosponge functions asa decoy to absorb and neutralize various types of pore-forming toxins secretedby pathogenic bacteria and thus divert the toxins away from natural targetcells. The toxin nanosponge technique also reduces the selective pressure forfurther antibiotic resistance because the technology is designed to “disarm”bacteria and then let the immune cells to take over the powerless pathogens;thereby no antibiotics are involved in the treatment.
Biography:
Dr. Liangfang Zhang received his Ph.D. in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering from theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2006 under the supervision ofProf. Steve Granick. He was a postdoctoral associate in the laboratory of Prof.Robert Langer at MIT during 2006-2008. He joined the Department ofNanoengineering at UC San Diego as an Assistant Professor in July 2008 and waspromoted to an Associate Professor with tenure in March 2012 and to Professorin July 2014. Dr. Zhang’s research interests focus on biomimetic nanomedicine,with a particular interest in creating and evaluating nanostructuredbiomaterials for drug delivery, detoxification and vaccination for treatment ofinfectious diseases and cancer. He has published 125 peer-reviewed articles andholds 43 issued/pending patents. He received the ACS Victor K. LaMer Award(2009), UCSD Best Teacher Award (2011), ACS Unilever Award (2012), MITTechnology Review’s TR35 Innovator Award (2013), AIChE Allan P. Colburn Award(2014), AIMBE Fellow (2015), and Popular Science’s Brilliant 10 Award (2016).
http://ne.ucsd.edu/faculty/l7zhang/index.php
Contact: Prof. Zhuang Liu
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