Brodeur Laboratory

Research in the Brodeur Lab currently focuses on nanoparticle (NP) drug delivery. Working closely with Michael Chorny, PhD, and Ivan Alferiev, PhD, at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, the lab aims to develop more effective and less toxic therapies for pediatric cancers, especially solid tumors like neuroblastoma. Although agents targeting specific genes, proteins, and pathways are needed, targeted drug delivery could dramatically improve efficacy and decrease toxicity.

The Brodeur Lab is developing several novel approaches for nanoparticle design and formulation. Furthermore, they are using several robust animal models of neuroblastoma (flank, orthotopic, and PDX xenografts; transgenic TH-MYCN mice), as well as sarcomas (RMS, EWS, OS) for testing nanocarrier formulations. This work has led to three recent publications demonstrating the lab's successful collaboration to study nanocarrier delivery of a PLA-PEG NP carrying SN38 co-drug with tocopherol succinate or oxyacetate.

Currently, the lab is working to optimize nanocarrier drug delivery by development of single-component, multivalent nanomedicines containing camptothecin derivatives for enhanced delivery of cancer therapeutics to pediatric solid tumors like neuroblastoma and sarcomas.

Project Highlights

• Formulation, optimization and testing of PLA-PEG nanoparticles containing potent chemotherapeutics as pro-drugs or co-drugs in animal models of pediatric solid tumors;
• Formulation, optimization and testing of multivalent macromolecules in animal models of pediatric solid tumors;
• New gene discovery for cancer predisposition syndromes for which genetic testing is negative or for which there is no known predisposition gene;
• Evaluation of enhanced surveillance techniques, including enhanced imaging, circulating tumor DNA, and microbiome analysis.