Abstract:
Cells are a basic unit of living organisms and using them as drug carriers has unique advantages. For instance, it can significantly improve the targeting efficiency due to the homing effects of selected cells. There are currently two strategies to construct cell-hitchhiking delivery systems (here referred to as cytopharmaceuticals). One is to directly phagocytose drugs (including nano-drugs) via endocytosis, and the other is to use covalent bonds or biological ligand-receptor interactions to conjugate nanomedicine to the surface of live cells. However, the cells that phagocytize medicines may degrade the drug before reaching the target. Covalent binding involves a complex synthetic process on the cell surface, which may impair the physiological function of the carrier cells. During the past a few years, we have developed several supramolecular chemistry inspired cytopharmaceuticals to tackle these above-mentioned issues and to enable targeted delivery of various nanomedicines to inflammatory tissues, solid tumors, and ischemic stroke etc. We show that these unique systems may effectively treat these diseases including acute pneumonia and atherosclerosis, solid tumors such as melanoma, and thromboembolic diseases.
Biography:
Dr. Ruibing Wang is currently Professor of Supramolecular Pharmaceutics at the University of Macau. He obtained his BSc and PhD degrees from Jilin University and Queen’s University, Canada, respectively. He joined the University of Macau in 2014. Prof. Wang’s research interests lie in supramolecular biomaterials, and cell-mimetic and cell-based pharmaceutics. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed research papers including prominent papers in journals such as Nature Comm., Sci. Adv., J. Am. Chem. Soc., Angew. Chem., Matter, and Adv. Mater.