3^rd Biomedical Engineering and Expo November 07-08, 2016 Barcelona, Spain

Biography:

Susan B Klein completed her PhD in Biophysics at University of California (Berkeley) in 1986. She completed her Post-doctoral training at University of Michigan in Biophysics and Radiation Oncology. After several years of bioengineering, she joined Indiana University Cyclotron Facility in 1990 where she examined proton radiation biology and began practicing medical physics. She is one of the seven intellectual property holders of the design, fabrication and operation of Midwest Proton Radiotherapy Institute. She is currently an Associate Director at Indiana University-Purdue University

Abstract:

Although particle therapy, particularly proton therapy is not a new technology having been initiated in 1952 at the University
of California at Berkeley cyclotron, it may be considered relatively new and certainly medical physicists are less familiar
with the clinical practice of particle therapy due to the scarcity of facilities worldwide. At last accounting, there were 67 facilities
in operation worldwide with another 49 under construction and a small fraction of the several thousands of linear accelerator
Xray therapy facilities. As charged particles interact with matter in fundamentally different ways than neutral particles, the
planning and delivery of particle therapy requires a unique intuition based both on physics and on radiation biology. This
presentation will discuss the therapy, radiation machine design, radiation biology and clinical techniques relevant to particle
therapy.

Biography:

Maria Elisabete C D Real Oliveira is an Associated Professor with Habilitation at Physics Department of UMinho. She has completed her BSc in Physics, UCoimbra,
Portugal, 1975, and her PhD at the University of Salford, UK/University of Minho in 1986. She was Head of the Master’s Degree in Biophysics and Bionanosystems, UM (2009-2014), Head of the Research Group Atomic Molecular and Optics Physics, Centre of Physics, UM (2013-present) and President of the Group of Colloids and Polymer (Portuguese Chemical Society), since 2013. She is author of more than 54 full publications (ISI) in repute journals (h index-16) and author of 2 patents.
She was also Founder of the Spin-off Nanodelivery–I&D in Bionanotechnology, LDA

Abstract:

Over the past 30 years, liposomes have been used as key components in several therapeutic strategies, due to the structure,
biocompatibility, biodegradability and low toxicity of these self-assembled nanostructures. The physicochemical characteristics of liposomes have been found to be suitable for the encapsulation and therapeutic delivery of several water soluble molecules, including nucleic acids and proteins. Recently, our group has developed a liposomal formulation based
on the helper lipid monoolein (MO) and cationic lipids from the dioctadecyldimethylammonium family (DODAX) that has
shown great potential as a drug nanocarrier. In this work, we show that liposomal formulation, composed by DODAB:MO (1:2), can be a suitable nanocarrier for different molecules. DODAB: MO was developed as hybrid vector used for: (i) plasmid DNA (pDNA) and small interfering RNA (siRNA) delivery (ii) drug delivery and also as (iii) an adjuvant to present vaccine antigens to the immune system. The physicochemical properties of the nanocarriers were evaluated by dynamic light scattering (DLS), Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) and Förster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET). In vitro and in vivo assays were performed to assess the cytotoxicity, internalization, transfection efficiency or immunostimulation of the different
nanoparticles produced. Our results demonstrate that DODAB:MO (1:2) can efficiently deliver different molecules (pDNA, siRNA, drugs and Candida albicans cell wall surface proteins (CWSP), without inducing significant cytotoxic effects, which makes this a very versatile nanocarrier system with a great therapeutic potential.