University of Illinois

Zaijie Wang

Ying Liu

The present disclosure provides methods and compositions related to nanoparticles comprising an encapsulated hydrophobic drug. The methods described herein provide nanoparticles having a small size and a narrow size distribution.

Nanoparticles and methods of producing the same

Drug delivery is targeted to new opioid receptors using receptor-mediated internalization. Dermorphin was successfully conjugated to DSPE-PEG3400 without affecting the affinity to its receptor. The synthesized conjugate was inserted into preformed sterically stabilized liposomes to obtain dermorphin-grafted SSL. DSPE-PEG34Qo-dermorphin and dermorphin-SSL retained their affinity and selectivity for MOR. Moreover, dermorphin-SSL and encapsulated probes were taken up by CHO-hMOR cells, but not by naive CHO cells or very closely related CHO-hDOR cells. Dermorphin-SSL can be used to deliver drugs to the intracellular component of intended cells with high fidelity. Therefore, dermorphin-SSL is useful to carry pharmaceutical agents to achieve region-specific delivery of analgesics and/or to attenuate side effects associated with opioids.

Targeted drug delivery of pain and addiction therapies using opioid receptor-mediated internalization

Composition and methods of treating pain and reducing, reversing, or preventing tolerance to opiate analgesics are disclosed. The composition and method utilize an opiate analgesic and a calcium calmodulin kinase (CaMKII) inhibitor as active agents to treat pain in mammals, including humans.

Growing community of inventors

Oak Park, IL, United States of America

Zaijie Wang