During an English class my sophomore
year, I was asked to write a literature review on a topic in my field that
interested me. After doing some reading, I decided to write about ultrasound in
therapy. As a non-invasive tool most commonly used for imaging, it piqued my
interest. My mentor, Dr. Chitnis of the
Bioengineering department at GMU happened to be doing research into therapeutic
ultrasound, specifically ultrasound-actuated drug delivery, and I was excited
to work with him on one of his projects.
Dr. Chitnis and his colleagues have
developed a hydrogel capsule that is filled with medicine and implanted at a
given area, then heated, releasing the medicine in a localized area. The
applications for such a system are vast, and most notably include chemotherapy,
which typically results in nasty side effects due to the high dosages and
systemic circulation of the drug. A localized capsule solves these issues by
restricting the drug release to the targeted area, in this case a tumor.
My research focuses on construction
of a model for drug release based on the heating of the capsule. Because the
hydrogel contracts when heated, and the contraction is stable at any given
temperature, a mathematical model relating the two allows for real-time control
of how much drug is being released, enabling doctors to tailor release profiles
on a per-patient, per-drug basis.
At this point, I am working mostly
on the computer, scouring literature for the physical properties of hydrogels,
and calculating the fluid dynamics present in them. The nature of the project
and the circumstances this summer have confined me to physics and mathematics
to characterize the temperature-release relationship, but the work is
satisfying, if frustrating at times. In the future, I will most likely be
working in the same field, hopefully with more opportunities for physical
experiments. This project has opened my eyes to some of the realities of
research, and the opportunity to work with Dr. Chitnis and alongside the other
members of the Biomedical Imaging Lab has been extraordinary.
