Category: Contributions

Hyperthermia has been explored as a treatment for disease such as cancer since ancient times. Recently, the development of nanotechnology and realization that iron oxide superparamagnetic nanoparticles can transform the energy of an alternating magnetic field into heat has spurred research in applying nanoscale thermal energy delivery to kill cancer cells. Although initially researchers had […]

The response of biocompatible magnetic nanoparticles to time-varying magnetic fields forms the basis of exciting biomedical applications, such as nanoscale magnetic thermal therapy (magnetic hyperthermia), magnetic particle imaging, relaxometric sensing, and magnetically-triggered drug release. In all these applications, understanding the coupling between magnetic, hydrodynamic, thermal, and magnetocrystalline torques on the magnetic nanoparticle dipoles is vital […]

The intracellular environment can be described as crowded, complex, and confined, where biomacromolecules with characteristic dimensions of 1-10’s of nm are present at high concentration, and where membranes, organelles, and filamentous matrices restrict motion. Although important in designing nanoparticles for biomedical applications, understanding of the transport of nanoparticles in such environments remains limited. Our group […]

Although magnetic nanoparticles have been synthesized since the 1960’s, most methods to obtain them yield particles with sub-optimal magnetic properties. Furthermore, many formulations intended for use in aqueous-phase result in rapid aggregation and precipitation in biological environments and in cell culture media. These limitations seriously hinder development of new biomedical applications of magnetic nanoparticles, such […]

Ferrofluids, semi-dilute suspensions of magnetic nanoparticles, are fascinating practically relevant examples of fluids that can be manipulated by magnetic fields. Although ferrofluids have been known since the 1960s, there is still much that is not known in terms of their governing equations, limiting our ability engineer novel applications. Our group has made fundamental contributions to […]