Date of Award

2011-01-01

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Mechanical Engineering

Advisor(s)

Tao Xu

Abstract

Despite decades of research, progress in targeted drug delivery is relatively slow, hampered, in part, by the lack of appropriate mechanisms to deliver anticancer drugs selectively to tumor tissues. Systemic or oral administration can cause severe toxicity, which limits the therapeutic potential of anticancer drugs [1]. Therefore, the most important goal of drug delivery is to minimize the exposure of normal tissues to these drugs while maintaining their therapeutic concentration in tumors.

A photovoltaic cell (PV) is a system that converts lights into electricity as well as induces charge transfer by photovoltaic effect. Motivated by such unique property, we have hypothesized that a PV, which holds opposite charges on its surfaces, can serve as a new drug delivery system to carry cancer chemotherapeutic drugs or substances and release them when the charge intensity or polarity changes upon external photo stimulation, such as near Near-Infrared (NIR) light or Laser source. In this new strategy, taking advantage of the attraction and repulsion between a photovoltaic device and a substance is proposed to serve as a new drug delivery method.

Language

en

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Size

42 pages

File Format

application/pdf

Rights Holder

Sunny S. Ambure

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Included in

Biomedical Commons

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