Molecular Engineering of Polymers for Cancer Nanomedicine

The cancer drug delivery process is a cascade of five steps consisting of Circulation in blood, Accumulation and Penetration in the tumor, cellular Internalization and intracellular drug Release, termed as a CAPIR cascade. Thus, the key to realizing high therapeutic efficiency of a nanomedicine is to maximize its each step efficiency, which is determined by the carrier’s nanoproperties, i.e., Size, Surface and Stability properties (3S nanoproperties). Thus, the utmost challenge of designing cancer nanomedicine is how to engineer the carriers’ functions to gain all the needed 3S nanoproperties. Herein, Dr. Shen will present his group’s molecular designs of polymers to fabricate self-adaptive nanocarriers for such 3S nanoproperties to achieve high therapeutic efficacy.