When designing drug carriers, the drug-to-carrier ratio is an important consideration, because the use of high quantities of carriers can result in toxicity as a consequence of poor metabolism and elimination of the carriers. However, these issues would be of less concern if both the drug and carrier had therapeutic effects. (-)-Epigallocatechin-3-O-gallate (EGCG), a major ingredient of green t...

Recent advances in fluorescent metal nanoclusters have spurred tremendous interest in nanomedicine due to the ease of fabrication, excellent biocompatibility, and, more importantly, excellent wavelength-dependent tunability. Herein, we report our findings on fluorescent BSA-protected gold nanoclusters (AuNCs), ∼2 nm in size conjugated with Herceptin (AuNCs-Her), for specific targeting and nucle...

The promise of antibodies as mediators of effective targeted anticancer therapy is beginning to be fulfilled. In the past few years, two monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) have been approved for selective use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) (Rockville, MD) and incorporated into standard therapy, resulting in improved clinical responses and prolongation of life. The most dramatic clinic...

In my humble opinion, there is a need to develop more clinical trials tailored to the socioeconomic conditions of LMICs. For example, herceptin’s efficacyandsurvivaladvantage in treatingbreastcancer has been proven in well-developed prospective clinical trials. However, only a meager percentage of thepopulationof LMICscanaffordherceptin,which, according to world standards, must be taken for 1 y...

Understanding the diffusion dynamics and receptor uptake mechanism of nanoparticles in cancer cells is crucial to the rational design of multifunctional nanoprobes for targeting and delivery. In this report, for the first time, we quantify the localization and evaluate the diffusion times of Herceptin-conjugated gold nanorods (H-GNRs) in different cell organelles by fluorescence correlation spe...

BACKGROUND There is an unmet need for specific and sensitive imaging techniques to assess the efficacy of breast cancer therapy, particularly Her-2-expressing cancers. Ultrasonic microbubbles are being developed for use as diagnostic and therapeutic tools. However, nanobubbles circulate longer, are smaller, and diffuse into extravascular tissue to specifically bind target molecules. Here, we ch...

Although many breast and lung cancers overexpress human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER-2), no methods currently exist for effective and early detection of HER-2-positive cancers. To address this issue, we designed and synthesized dendrimer-based novel nano-imaging agents that contain gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) and gadolinium (Gd), conjugated with the humanized anti-HER-2 antibody (Herc...

Breast cancer greatly threatens the health of women all over the word despite of several effective drugs. Targeted therapy for breast cancer is limited to human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2). Herceptin®, monoclonal antibody against HER2, is now widely used in HER2(+) breast cancer. Abraxane®, the current gold standard for paclitaxel (PTX) delivery, has shown superiority in breast ca...

Uniformly sized and shaped iron oxide nanoparticles with a mean size of 25 nm were synthesized via decomposition of iron-oleate. High resolution transmission electron microscopy and Mössbauer spectroscopy investigations revealed that the particles are spheres primarily composed of Fe3O4 with a small fraction of FeO. From Mössbauer and static magnetization measurements, it was deduced that the p...

Clinically, HER2 proto-oncogene amplification is found in about 25-30% of human breast cancers, where it is correlated to a poor prognosis. Constitutive STAT3 activation is found in about 50-60% of the breast tumors and associated with tumorigenesis and drug resistance. In this study, we showed that STAT3 was phosphorylated in HER2-overexpressing, ER-positive human breast tumors and, furthermor...