Ernest Durbin with Gavin Buxton

Development of a Discrete Model of Polymer Nanoparticles for Drug Delivery

Chemotherapeutic agents have been found to be increasingly effective at fighting the growth of cancerous tumors. However, they can also have a devastating impact on healthy tissue and prove to be fatal to the patient. Polymer nanoparticles have recently been used experimentally to increase the precision of drug delivery by encapsulating drugs until the site of the tumor is reached. Environmental variables such as pH balance and hydrodynamic forces unique to such sites can then be used to increase the drug release rate. While the entropy of monomer-monomer interactions for a polymer chains are well understood, polymer chain-chain interactions within the nanoparticle are required to capture the mechanical properties of polymer nanoparticles. This project will seek to theoretically and computationally elucidate the entropic, and enthalpic, interactions within a polymer nanoparticle and develop a discrete model of polymer nanoparticle mechanics. The resulting models will help us understand how polymer swelling near more acidic tumor sites, or hemodynamic stresses which arise due to the irregular vasculature of the tumor, can influence the release of anti-cancer drugs from these nanoparticles.