Dual Approach to Enhance Nanoparticle based treatments of Brain Tumors

The project is a funded fellowship from the American Brain Tumor Foundation. The central hypothesis of this proposal is that magnetic nanoparticles offer an unprecedented opportunity to induce cellular toxicity and prolong survival of animals with experimental glioma. The testing of this hypothesis involves: 1) demonstrating that the addition of peptides on the surface of a nanoparticle can increase the distribution uptake within a tumor; 2) enhancing the NP distribution throughout the tumor in vivo via use of focused ultrasound; and 3) determining optimal magnetic field time and duration for efficient cell destruction.