Nanomedicine and Genome Editing Approaches for Disease Therapies

The integration of biomolecular engineering, nanotechnology and molecular biology is expected to produce major breakthroughs in medical diagnostics and therapeutics. Due to the size compatibility of nano-scale structures with proteins and nucleic acids, the design, synthesis and application of nanoprobes, nanocarriers and nanomachines provide unprecedented opportunities for achieving a better control of biological processes, and drastic improvements in disease detection, therapy, and prevention. Dr. Bao will present recent work on magnetic nanoparticles in his lab, including the synthesis and functionalization of magnetic nanocluster for treating metastatic cancer. He will then present the design and optimization of CRISPR/Cas based genome editing for treating sickle cell disease.The challenges and opportunities in developing in vivo genome editing will also be discussed.