Drug delivery across epithelial barriers (oral, transdermal, mucosal) remains the preferred route for drug administration. However, therapeutic macromolecular drugs currently under development suffer from poor oral bioavailability, and consequently many of these macromolecules are delivered by injection. A variety of delivery paradigms have been developed, including chemical permeation enhancers, physical disruptors, and mucoadhesive materials, to enable more effective delivery of therapeutic macromolecules across epithelium but clinical utility has been limited thus far. In this talk, I will discuss the effect of nanostructured surfaces on the modulation of tight junction protein expression, remodeling, and transport of key therapeutic molecules in vitro and in vivo. The effect of geometry on tight junction restructuring will be discussed in the context of improving delivery of macromolecules.
Bio
Dr. Tejal Desai is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. She is a member of the California Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Research, PI of the UCSF/UC Berkeley Graduate Group NIH Training Grant in Bioengineering, and founding faculty director of the UCSF/UC Berkeley Master’s in Translational Medicine. Prior to joining UCSF, she was an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Boston University and Associate Director of the Center for Nanoscience and Nanobiotechnology at BU. She received the Sc.B. degree in Biomedical Engineering from Brown University in 1994 and the Ph.D. degree in bioengineering from the joint graduate program at University of California, Berkeley and the University of California, San Francisco, in 1998.
Dr. Desai currently directs the Laboratory of Therapeutic Micro and Nanotechnology where her research brings together advanced micro and nanotechnologies, fundamental insight into cellular behavior in engineered environments, and novel pharmacologic delivery approaches to address disease treatment and clinical translation. Currently, her laboratory focuses on four highly interdisciplinary directions: 1. Hierarchical devices for enhanced cellular adhesion and paracellular drug transport; 2. Injectable and flexible nanoporous devices for rate-controlled long term release of therapeutics; 3. Nanostructured coatings and scaffolds for pro-healing implants and in vivo modulation of fibrosis, and 4. Cell-based delivery platforms for autoimmune disease applications. By taking advantage of an understanding of how cells respond to engineered materials and the ability to fabricate precise structural domains, her lab seeks to design new platforms to overcome existing challenges in therapeutic delivery.
In addition to authoring over 170 peer-reviewed papers and delivering over 200 invited talks, she is presently a senior editor of Langmuir and Biomedical Microdevices, and co-editor of an encyclopedia on Therapeutic Microtechnology. Dr. Desai has chaired and organized numerous conferences and symposia in the area of biomedical micro and nanotechnology, drug delivery and tissue engineering, and serves as Chair of the NIH Biomaterials and Biointerfaces study section. She also sits on the steering committee of the Whitaker Foundation and is on the external advisory committees of several bioengineering departments nationally. Her other interests include K-12 educational outreach, gender and science education, science policy issues, and bioengineering industry outreach.
Her research efforts have earned national and international recognition including Technology Review’s “Top 100 Young Innovators,” Popular Science’s Brilliant 10, and NSF’s “New Century Scholar”. She also received the Eurand Grand Prize and Pfizer/Capsugel Awards for innovative drug delivery technology, the Young Career Award from the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (IEEE EMBS), and the UC Berkeley Distinguished Young Alumni award. More recently she received the Dawson Biotechnology Award and was elected as a fellow of both AIMBE and BMES.