Nanoparticle carriers hold great promise for therapeutic and targeted drug delivery and tissue repair due to their prolonged circulation presence, improved transport properties and site-specific targeting with minimal distribution to normal tissues.

Although a variety of different types of nanoparticles and formulations have been developed for drug and gene delivery and tissue engineering, our efforts have focused on the design and synthesis of crosslinked hydrogel nanoparticles of poly(ethylene) glycol (PEG) formed using inverse phase (water in oil, w/o) miniemulsion polymerization process for encapsulation and sustained release of hydrophilic therapeutic compounds for drug delivery, tissue repair and as novel therapeutics for treatment of disease.

The advantage of using or modifying nanoparticles with PEG compounds has been previously demonstrated.

Specifically, coating nanoparticle surfaces with PEG has been shown to prevent non-specific cell and protein adhesion, opsonization, and to enhance particle diffusion and penetration within target tissues, yet the development of PEG hydrogel nanoparticles for hydrophilic drug delivery is far less common.

In collaboration with S. C. Johnson Professor Fouad Teymour in the Chemical and Biological engineering department at IIT we have developed novel polymerization processes to produce crosslinked hydrogel poly(ethylene) glycol (PEG) nanoparticles (NPs) of narrow particle size and distribution using inverse phase miniemulsion polymerization (IPMP) for encapsulation and sustained release of distinct hydrophilic therapeutics.

The versatility of our proposed NP platform is that it enables modulation of release kinetics and duration by adjustments in nanoparticle crosslink density and mesh size though controlled adjustments in monomer conditions (PEG diacrylate and NVP comonomer mole fractions).

Our efforts in nanoparticle drug delivery are being applied for treatment of infectious and ischemic cardiovascular disease and obesity using novel therapeutics.