Welcome to the Homepage of the Giorgio/Haselton Labs!

The development and application of nanotechnology to biology and medicine is a rapidly evolving research area.  Our overall laboratory goal is to develop new core technologies based on the unique properties on nanomaterials to significantly impact the future of medicine.  With support from DOD and NIH, lab co-directors Todd Giorgio and Rick Haselton lead a team that is developing and testing novel nanoparticle designs for a variety of applications. Some of these are the rapid detection of virus in a clinical sample, the early stage detection of cancerous cells, the identification of atherosclerotic plaques and the rapid detection of hospital pathogens.  Current projects focus on developing quantum dots, gold or iron oxide nano-particles to efficiently home to the target of interest, to actively respond to environmental cues and to effectively report the target’s location and state.

Ongoing Research Activities

Environmentally sensitive contrast agents for imaging proteolytic activity in human pathologies. Over the past decade, a substantial body of research has produced a wide range of nanoscale contrast agents for interrogating microenvironments specific to human pathologies of interest, such as atherosclerosis and cancer. In these two cases, passive targeting of the contrast agents to sites of disease has been achieved through the enhanced permeation and retention (EPR) effect, while active targeting has been achieved using methods such as the immobilization of antibodies, peptides, or other ligands on nanoparticles. In order to achieve further site specificity, we are working on developing novel nanomaterials that respond in the presence of specific microenvironments, such as the proteolytic environment in tumors. Our active projects seek to achieve this goal on quantum dots, dendrimers, gold nanoparticles, and iron oxide nanoparticles, in order to develop a nanoparticle toolbox for use with a wide range of imaging modalities.

Researchers: Bell, Lowery, Ortega, Scherer, Yu

Web page:
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/nanomedicine/index.php*

Dr. Giorgio: VUBME page

Dr. Haselton: VUBME page