Smart Nanomedicines Using Biomedical Nanomaterials

McDonnell Douglas Engineering Auditorium

ChEMS Seminar



Speaker: Dr. Sei Kwang Hahn

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and School of Interdisciplinary Bioscience and Bioengineering,

POSTECH, Pohang, Kyungbuk, Korea

Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, Cambridge, MA

 

Biomedical nanomaterials cover all classes of materials including metals, ceramics and polymers for the development of various nano-medicines. Nano-medicine is the term for the use of advanced nanotechnology and biotechnology for the development of medicines. In this presentation, a variety of smart nanomedicines using biomedical nanomaterials will be presented for diagnostic and therapeutic applications. The first part will include real-time bioimaging of hyaluronic acid (HA) derivatives using quantum dots and their applications to target specific siRNA therapeutics complexed with reducible PEI-HA conjugate, target specific HA - Interferon aconjugate, long acting HA - Anti Flt1 peptide conjugate micelles, and on-demand theranostic systems using HA- cucurbit[6]uril (CB[6]) conjugate. In the second part, I will present HA hydrogels for various tissue engineering applications including peritoneal adhesion barriers of HA/hydroxyethylstarch blends, HA hydrogels for tissue augmentation, and in situ forming and modularly modified HA-CB[6]/polyamine hydrogels for genetically engineered mesenchymal stem cell therapy. All these smart nanomedicines will be discussed on the feasibility for their further clinical development.

 



Biography:

Prof. Sei Kwang Hahn did his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering of KAIST. As the youngest Ph.D. at LG Chemical group in 1996, he started his research on biodegradable polymer and then sustained release formulation of hGH (SR-hGH). From 2001, he did his post-doctoral research with Prof. Allan Hoffman in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Washington. After that, he worked for long acting formulation of various biopharmaceuticals at the Roche group, Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. in Japan for longer than three years. Since 2005, he has worked as a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at POSTECH and an adjunct professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Bioscience and Bioengineering at POSTECH. He worked as a consultant for Johnson & Johnson, Ethicon in New Jersey and made a collaboration contract with Hoffman-La Roche. Recently, he joined in the Wellman Center for Photomedicine, MGH, Harvard Medical School for his sabbatical leave.