Mary Caldorera Moore, whose work was recently mentioned in Design News, spoke at the American Chemical Society's annual meeting on March 19 in Dallas, Texas.
Mary Caldorera Moore, whose work was recently mentioned in Design News, spoke at the American Chemical Society's annual meeting on March 19 in Dallas, Texas.
Caldorera-Moore, who received her doctorate in biomedical engineering from The University of Texas at Austin in 2010, delivered a presentation on Environmentally Responsive Theranostic Carrier Systems for Oral Delivery of Chemotherapeutic Agents.
As a postdoctoral researcher in Professor Nicholas Peppas' lab, Caldorera-Moore studied nanocarrier systems that have the potential to both diagnose cancer and then locally treat those cancerous cells.
"Nanotechnology gives us the ability to make diagnosis of deep tissue cancers, such as that of the pancreas or the lungs, earlier and more efficiently," said Caldorera-Moore. "By blending two research areas together—nanotechnology and targeted drug delivery—we may find new ways to locally treat cancer and other diseases."
While at UT Austin, Caldorera-Moore worked with Peppas and other collaborators at MD Anderson Cancer Center on the development of theranostic nanocarriers. The work involved the optimization of environmentally responsive hydrogel biomaterials that could be used for release of gold nanoparticles in responsive to temperature and/or pH change. The temperature and pH-responsive carriers can be tailored to deliver drugs to a targeted site, allowing for localized treatment of cancer.
Caldorera-Moore is an assistant professor and runs the Therapeutic Micro- and Nanotechnology Biomaterial Laboratory at Louisiana Tech University. As a graduate student at The University of Texas at Austin, she studied with Krishnendu Roy, currently a professor with Georgia Tech University.
Caldorera-Moore attended the American Chemical Society National Meeting along
with Nicholas Peppas and current graduate students in his lab. Pictured from left
to right: Michael Koetting, Mary Caldorera-Moore, Stephanie Steichen, and Jonathan Peters.
