"Harnessing nanomedicine for treating peripheral vascular diseases"

ABSTRACT:

The vascular system is essential to the maintenance of physiological functions of every organ. Vascular diseases - either occlusive (stenosis) or degenerative (aneurysm) - are highly prevalent in the aged population in the US. Despite decades of advancement in medications and devices, surgical treatments, despite invasive and costly, remain the primary choice of care. The problem is two-fold: lack of new drugs, and lack of delivery approaches. In a cross-disciplinary collaborative effort, we adopted a two-pronged approach, which led to the discovery of a series of actionable intervention targets as well as the development of nanoplatforms uniquely catered to each vascular disease settings. In this seminar, we will summarize the ongoing research concerning the potential utility of nanomedicine as non-surgical treatment for vascular diseases ranging from (re)stenosis to abdominal aortic aneurysm.