Name: Meena Kadapakkam
Major: Biomedical Engineering

I work in Dr. Lisa Brannon-Peppas's lab in the Biomedical Engineering department. Our lab focuses on making targeted polymer nanoparticles for cancer imaging and detection. I have been working in the lab for three semesters now, and have worked on different aspects of this project each semester. The first semester, my research focused on encapsulating an imaging agent into the polymer nanoparticles. The next semester I tried to conjugate PEG onto the nanoparticles in order to provide them with stealth properties (not recognized by the immune system). I am currently preparing a study to test the ability of the targeted nanoparticles to properly reach the selected cells and release the encapsulated drug. The main focus of this lab is making the polymer nanoparticles which involves mixing the polymer and encapsulated agent into solvents and allowing them to form small particles through sonication and solvent evaporation. Different techniques and polymer types are tested to acheive the best yield and encapsulation efficiency. There is a lot of focus on organic chemistry with the polymers and solvents. The more biological aspect has been touched on recently with cell studies to test how the nanoparticles are taken up by the cells and to determine the effects of targeting the cells with antibodies. Work is conducted under the supervision of a graduate student. A mini-project is given to each undergraduate student each semester, and the graduate students provide guidance on how the project is to be conducted. The atmosphere in the lab is relaxed, and the lab is fairly small with only three graduate students and eight undergraduates.