Colloids
Vaporizable Endoskeletal Drops
Our group recently discovered a new solid-in-liquid (endoskeletal) drop composition. The endoskeletal drops are suspended in water and have exciting biomedical applications. On one hand, a fluorocarbon solid in a fluorocarbon liquid stabilizes the liquid phase against vaporizaiton and creates very interseting structures (see image below). On the other hand, hydrocarbon solid in a fluorocarbon liquid allows vaporization near the melting point of the hydrocarbon solid - a new vaporization mechanism that we call "interfacial melting".
Read about the discovery here: Shakya et al. (2020)
Lipid Monolayer Intermolecular and Surface Forces
In collaboration with Todd Murray, our group is using novel laser acoustics methods to measure the viscoelastic properties of lipid microbubble shells. Read more here: (2014), (2016), (2018), (2020)
We are also investigating models to link the chemistry to the interfacial transport properties via the intermolecular and surface forces. Read more here: (2018), (2019)
Lung Surfactant Microbubbles (Synthetic Alveoli)
Another major goal of our lab is to examine the mechanical and gas transport properties of bio-mimetic lung surfactant films for the engineering of synthetic alveoli for oxygen delivery.
Read more here: (2009), (2013a), (2013b), (2017)
Multifunctional Colloids
Our group is contantly synthesizing and characterizing novel colloidal constructs with multiple therapeutic and diagnostic functions. Examples include Gd-labeled microbubbles for MRI-guided focused ultrasound surgery, lung surfactant microbubbles for enhanced lipophilic drug payload, and polyplex-loaded microbubbles for ultrasound-targeted gene therapy. The example below shows recent work on gold nanoparticle-coated nanodrops for photoacoustic imaging and photothermal therapy. Read more here: (2014)