Amey Puranik
Graduate Student
The University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station, MC C0400
Chemical Engineering Dept.
Austin, TX 78712
apuranik@utexas.edu

Background:

Amey is originally from Mumbai, India. He received a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering degree from the Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai (previously a part of the University of Mumbai, UDCT), in May 2010. As an undergraduate, Amey presented a number of posters and papers on a variety of topics such as Artificial Photosynthesis, zero-discharge bio-refineries and steam reforming of methanol for PEM based fuel cell devices using microchannel reactors. For his senior year project, Amey completed an extensive literature survey on the developments in extraction techniques for natural ingredients such as turmeric, black pepper oil, linseed oil, etc.  Amey was admitted to the University of Texas at Austin in Fall 2010 and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering as a graduate student under the direction of Dr. Nicholas Peppas.  

Research Summary

The overall aim of my research is to develop carriers that can deliver poorly water-soluble drugs via an oral route of administration. The development of such carriers can prove to be an effective treatment modality for cancer and can improve patient comfort and quality of life, in addition to ensuring the delivery of chemotherapeutics specifically to the cells that are afflicted by the disease.

Intravenous administration of hydrophobic chemotherapeutics can result in potentially toxic systemic concentrations of therapeutics, causing several deleterious side effects and deterioration of patient quality of life. To remedy these shortcomings, we seek to investigate carriers that can enhance the therapeutic effect of hydrophobic chemotherapeutics, while minimizing side effects and be delivered orally. However, oral delivery of hydrophobic therapeutic agents involves a number of challenges that must be circumvented such as loading hydrophobic chemotherapeutics in conventional hydrophilic polymer carriers, protecting the therapeutic agent from the low pH and degradative enzymes of the stomach, and finally, absorption and transport across the lumen wall to desired cancerous location. We propose that polyanionic grafted polymeric nanoparticles can help achieve this objective. These pH-responsive nanoparticles can be incorporated with hydrophobic moieties to exhibit increased loading and release of the hydrophobic chemotherapeutics.
 

Bae H; Puranik AS; Gauvin R; Edalat F; Carrillo-Conde B; Peppas N A; Khademhosseini A, "Building functional vascular networks within tissue engineered constructs", Science Translational Medicine (link).