Principal Investigator

My research interests at MGH and HMS center around understanding in vivo transport and nano-bio interactions of theranostic nanoparticles (NPs) for diagnosing, staging, and treating diseases. I have a diverse background in nanomedicine and drug delivery, contributing original ideas for biomedical applications. As a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School, working with our collaborator Dr. Jean-Luc Coll (Program Director of Cancer Targets and Experimental Therapeutics) at the University of Grenoble-Alpes in France, we developed renal clearable organic nanocarriers for targeting and delivering drugs to gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST). Our work defined essential characteristics such as hydrodynamic diameter, surface charges, mass-to-charge ratio, and elimination kinetics, crucial for nanoparticles to be eliminated through renal clearance. These findings, published in top-ranked materials chemistry journals (Advanced Materials, 2016 and 2020, Nano Today, 2018), significantly influenced the design of biocompatible delivery vehicles for anticancer drugs. After I took a faculty position at MGH, I investigated the relationship between the size, charge, lipophilicity, and pharmacokinetics of nanoparticles for iron chelation therapy. Our research led to the development of ultrasmall iron nanochelators capable of efficiently capturing iron from the body without dispersing into off-target tissues, thus facilitating urinary excretion (Nature Communications, 2019). These nanochelators exhibit rapid distribution into deep target tissues, strong binding to free iron in blood and tissues, and quick excretion through the urinary bladder without redistribution.

In my recent study, we proposed a novel tumor-targeting strategy based on tumor-associated-immune-cell-mediated targeting. This approach, highlighted in Advanced Materials in 2022, involves the uptake of near-infrared fluorophores by bone-marrow-derived and/or tissue-resident/tumor-associated immune cells in the tumor microenvironment, enabling noninvasive NIR-II imaging and immune-cell-mediated tumor targeting across various tumor types such as pancreatic, breast, and lung cancers. This research suggests the potential development of targeted theranostic agents for cancer treatment. In addition, we reported the development of a novel cartilage-targeting near-infrared fluorophore for noninvasive imaging of early-stage rheumatoid arthritis (Chem, 2025). This work introduces cartilage-targeting fluorophores in the second near-infrared window, enabling clear visualization of cartilage with high specificity and minimal interference. CARFs demonstrate low toxicity and offer potential as diagnostic tools for early arthritis detection, paving the way for transformative applications in tissue engineering, joint surgery, and therapeutic development for inflammatory diseases.