CURRENT EVENTS
Winter 2022
Outdoor kick off social!
Wednesday, September 7, 2022 | 5:00 p.m. | Quad outside Smith Hall
Come celebrate the new graduate students and post-docs in the Polymer Group! All members and faculty welcome!
Professor Natalie Boehnke
UMN CEMS
Event sponsor: PPG
Wednesday, September 7, 2022 | 4:00 p.m. | Smith 331
An integrative approach to nanomedicine: new tools for drug delivery
Nanoparticle translation to the clinic is lacking in large part due to limited accumulation in tumor
sites. This can be attributed to the complexity and heterogeneity of both the biological
environment and the nanoparticle constructs, making it prohibitively challenging to deconvolute
individual factors that contribute to nanoparticle trafficking and accumulation. We have developed
integrated screening approaches to gain a holistic understanding of both the nanomaterials
properties and biological features mediating successful drug delivery. By leveraging combinatorial
libraries of polymer and lipid-based nanoparticles and pooled cell screening, we can begin to
establish structure-function relationships at the nano-bio interface. In this talk, I will describe our
nanoparticle library design and synthesis and the results from our integrated screens, which
indicate that matching nanoparticle properties and cellular phenotypes is much more critical for
targeted delivery than previously thought.
Job contract and negotiation panel
Thursday, September 1 | 9:00 a.m. | Zoom
Event sponsor: PPG
Come learn about how to navigate job offers and aspects to consider when signing employment contracts!
Our panelists include:
David Dingwell, Plakas Mannos
Dr. Nicholas Ball-Jones, Boston Scientific