Aptamers and Cancer Nanotechnology

Date: 11/03/2006
Time: 1:00 pm
Location: 106G WV
Speaker: Dr. Omid Farokhzad, M.D., Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital

The contributions of targeted drug delivery and controlled-release technologies may pave the road to more effective yet safer chemotherapeutic options for cancer therapy. Targeted, drug-encapslated, polymeric nanoparticle-aptamer bioconjugates represent an emerging technology that can facilitate the delivery of chemotherapeutics to tumors. Aptamers are short nucleic acid molecules with binding properties and biochemical characteristics that make them desirable as targeting molecules. The goal of this talk is to summarize the key components required for creating effective cancer-targeting nanoparticle-aptamer conjugates. The structure and properties of aptamers, as well as the development and evaluation of therapeutic and imaging conjugates that take advantage of the unique properties of the aptamers, will be discussed.