Research Projects

Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) are a special class of hybrid materials made up of metal clusters or ions joined by organic linkers. Their highly adjustable architectures and porosity have led to their growing significance in chemical processing,¹ biological applications,² and environmental remediation.³ The customizable nano-spaces of MOFs can accommodate a wide range of guest species,⁴ Importantly, MOFs can be modified at the nanoscale to create nanoscale MOFs (NMOFs) having immense potential for medication and diagnostic agent carriers. NMOFs of variable porosities and functionalities can easily be synthesized and highly labile metal-ligand interactions allow quick degradation of NMOFs and subsequent release of nanocarriers after hitting target. When drug delivery application is targeted, enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect enables greater accumulation of therapeutic agents at tumor sites. That makes NMOFs highly promising as nanocarriers for the targeted delivery of theragnostic agents. Thus, we hypothesize that targeted drug delivery using NMOFs will offer increased accuracy and effectiveness enabled by structural flexibility, biodegradability, and extremely large surface areas that boost drug loading capacity. Tumors cause major health risk, forcing research into surgery, chemo, and radiation treatments. However, these techniques damage healthy organs during chemotherapy and have little impact on malignant tumors. Anti-cancer drug lacks targeting and killing both tumor and normal cells. Materials exploiting differences between tumor and normal cells enable targeted drug delivery systems. Adjustable porosity and large surface area make NMOFs as best for this drug delivery application. Doxorubicin (DOX) will be the focus drug due to its potent, broad-spectrum anticancer activity coupled with significant limitations as a free hydrophilic agent, including poor cellular uptake and severe off-target systemic toxicities, making it an ideal candidate for encapsulation and light-responsive release from NMOFs. The NMOFs will be synthesized purposefully with photo-isomerizable linkers that make NMOFs photo-labile facilitating light triggered drug release. The synthesis of NMOFs will be carried out using solvothermal, microwave-assisted, or sonochemical method. The resulting NMOFs will be characterized using confocal laser scanning microscopy, powder X-ray diffraction, single-crystal X-ray diffraction, thermogravimetric analysis, transmission electron microscopy, dynamic light scattering, etc. Cellular toxicity evaluations will be carried out in compliance with accepted biological evaluation practices, and drug loading and subsequent release experiments will be carried out in compliance with known literature methodologies. (1) Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2000, 39, 2396-2407. (2) ACS Appl. Bio Mater., 2022, 5, 971-1012. (3) Chem. Soc. Rev., 2017, 46, 3108-3133. (4) Adv. Drug Deliv. Rev., 2022, 190, 114496.