Lecture: Functional Materials for Advanced Drug/Gene Delivery
Time: 10:00a.m., Jan. 4th, 2015
Place: Room 214, Building No. 16, Wushan Campus
Speaker: Professor Sheng Dai (University of Adelaide, Australia)

Brief introduction to Professor Sheng Dai
      Nowadays, human disease trends to be more complicated and multiplexed. To improve therapeutic efficiency, multifunctional smart delivery systems have to be developed. In this seminar, our recent achievement in various novel polymer-based or hybrid-based drug and gene delivery systems will be introduced. Such materials show low cytotoxicity, high drug/gene loading capability and excellent drug/gene protection capability. The release of drugs/genes can be regulated by intracellular microenvironments. The applications of hybrid materials of mesoporous silica and cationic polymers render it possibility to co-deliver gene and drug together. Moreover, intracellular redox-regulated gene traceable delivery systems have been developed to in situ monitor the real gene delivery course. It is hoped such multifunctional delivery carriers can benefit human health in the near future.

    Dr Sheng Dai is an Associate Professor at the University of Adelaide, Australia. He received his Bachelor degree from Zhejiang University, and Master and PhD degrees from Nanyang Technological University Singapore. He has worked as postdoc and full-time researchers at the Singapore-MIT Alliance, McMaster University, University of Alberta and University of Toronto. He joined the University of Adelaide in 2009. His current research interest includes polymers, colloids, nanomaterials and their diverse applications in biological, energy and environmental disciplines. He has produced more than 90 journal articles with more than 2500 times of citations, including JACS, Angew Chemie, Adv Mat, Adv Fun Mat, Adv Healthcare Mat, Biomaterials, Small and others.