{"401591":{"#nid":"401591","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Parallel Targets","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThere are an estimated 120 million people in the developing world with lymphatic filariasis, a painful disease that often leads to lymphedema. Once a parasitic filiarial worm called Brugia malayi is transmitted to a host through a mosquito\u2019s saliva, they make their way to the lymphatics, where they grow and multiply. And when these worms have made themselves at home, there are few treatment options, because there are no lymphatic-localized therapies targeting the adult worms.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut research from the lab of Susan Thomas at the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience may offer new hope for the millions who already are infected and the billion people identified as at risk for infection.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThere are ways to prevent the transmission of the disease, but no way to treat people already affected by the adult worms,\u201d says Thomas, assistant professor in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, whose research is detailed in a paper published in the journal Advanced Healthcare Materials. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThe major problem is, we can\u2019t actually get drugs to the tissues to kill the worms,\u201d says Thomas, also affiliated with the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering. \u201cBut we have designed nanoparticles with very strong lymphatic targeting activity.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESo Thomas and her team are using their targeted drug delivery scheme to treat lymphatic filariasis, encapsulating high amounts of nitric oxide (NO) into nanoparticles, which are injected into interstitial tissues, such as the skin, and then taken up, by lymphatics. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EResults of the research suggest that therapeutic use of these NO-containing nanoparticles can eradicate Brugia malayi that reside within the lymphatic tissues, as well as for other deep tissue NO delivery applications. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThomas\u0027s lymphedema-related research represents a longstanding collaboration with fellow Petit Institute faculty member J. Brandon Dixon \u2013 they trained together as post-docs, and Dixon is co-author of the research paper. Lead author of the paper, entitled \u201cS-nitrosated polypropylene sulfide nanoparticles for thiol-dependent transnitrosation and toxicity against adult female filarial worms,\u201d is Alex Schudel, a Ph.D. student in the Thomas lab. Timothy Kassis, a Ph.D. student in the Dixon lab, is also a co-author.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe targeted delivery technology at the heart of that research paper also has caught the attention of the Susan G. Komen Foundation, who awarded Thomas a three-year grant for $450,000 to study how the strategy might be used to deliver drugs to sentinel lymph nodes in breast cancer patients, a form of immunotherapy. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhen cancer cells spread from a primary tumor in the breast, their first stop in the lymph nodes are typically the sentinel lymph nodes. Sentinel lymph nodes are the first lymph nodes to which cancer cells are most likely to spread from a primary tumor. Thomas has been exploring how targeted delivery of therapeutics could promote anti-tumor immunity and hinder tumor growth.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cImmunotherapy has the potential to treat tumors that we can\u2019t actually see,\u201d Thomas says. \u201cBut our immune system can see them. So this is a way of teaching our immune system to find the cancer and kill it, or prevent the disease occurrence. If we could teach our immune systems to kill, say, a breast tumor or breast cancer metastases or any other malignant tumor, that would be very beneficial in the long term.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECONTACT:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/node\/jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Thomas lab publishes new research"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThomas lab publishes new research\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Thomas lab publishes new research"}],"uid":"28153","created_gmt":"2015-05-04 12:54:37","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:18:13","author":"Jerry Grillo","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2015-05-04T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2015-05-04T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"224901":{"id":"224901","type":"image","title":"Susan Thomas, PhD","body":null,"created":"1449243551","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:39:11","changed":"1475894896","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:48:16","alt":"Susan Thomas, PhD","file":{"fid":"197395","name":"thomassusan2013-lab2.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/thomassusan2013-lab2_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/thomassusan2013-lab2_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1846981,"path_740":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/thomassusan2013-lab2_0.jpg?itok=YM1rqzNT"}}},"media_ids":["224901"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1002\/adhm.201400841\/full","title":"Thomas paper"}],"groups":[{"id":"1292","name":"Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB)"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"126371","name":"go-imm#uno"},{"id":"125381","name":"lymphadema"},{"id":"169542","name":"Susan Thomas"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/node\/jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}