Please contact the symposium organizers with questions.

Application of nanomaterials and nanotechnology to medical diagnosis and therapy has brought tremendous advances in the development of targeted drug-delivery and bioanalytical systems. Chemically engineered nanostructures tagged with appropriate biomolecules such as antibodies, proteins, DNAs, drug molecules, etc. offer multifunctional nanoprobes enabling transport across biological barriers making cellular and subcellular delivery of poorly soluble drugs possible. Moreover, nanostructures are optimally suited for combination of therapeutic and imaging modalities on a single nanocarrier to deliver dual-vectors that make drug-delivery and cellular diagnostics more effective. Recent advances have shown the potential of biofunctional nanoparticles in stimuli-responsive and site-specific delivery of therapeutic payloads, tracking of intracellular processes and visualization of endocytosis and uptake processes. Moreover, the sensitive extraction and detection of prognostic and diagnostic biomarkers such as microRNAs, proteins and other biomolecules, including those encapsulated in extracellular vesicles, using nanotechnology-based approaches represents a key advancement on the way to early disease diagnosis.

The promises of nanomedicine to improve medical diagnosis and tumor therapy emphasizes the need of an interdisciplinary dialogue at the interface of materials science, biology and medicine. This is especially crucial to address the bottlenecks associated with the translation of proof-of-concept studies into clinically tested and approved products. The major motivation behind this symposium is to bring together scientists exploring nanomaterials for biological and medical applications with experts from regulatory agencies.

Topics will include:

• Materials for targeted delivery of drugs and chemical therapeutics
• Multifunctional nanoprobes with diagnostic, imaging and therapeutic units
• New approaches to image biological processes at nanometer scale
• Nanozyme-based biosensors and therapies
• Neuronanotherapeutics
• Magnetic nanoparticles for hyperthermia applications
• Nanobio-conjugates for advanced sensing and detection
• Cellular uptake and localization studies in animal models
• Pharmacokinetic and dynamics of nanoprobes in biological systems
• Kinetic studies on release of therapeutic cargos
• Nano-biocatalysis

Invited Speakers:

• Souad Ammar (Université de Paris, France)
• Polina Anikeeva (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)
• Eric Appel (Stanford University, USA)
• Rizia Bardhan (Iowa State University, USA)
• Divya Maitreyi Chari (Keele University, United Kingdom)
• Chia-Liang Cheng (National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan)
• Catherine Dendrinou-Samara (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece)
• Laura Fabris (Rutgers University, USA)
• Chunhai Fan (Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China)
• Alessandra Fierabracci (Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, Italy)
• Emmanuel Flahaut (Université Paul Sabatier, France)
• Yao He (Soochow University, China)
• Eva Hemmer (University of Ottawa, Canada)
• Inge Hermann (ETH Zürich, Switzerland)
• Claire Hoskins (University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom)
• Twan Lammers (RWTH Aachen University, Germany)
• Verónica Lassalle (Universidad Nacional del Sur, Argentina)
• Rafik Naccache (Concordia University, Canada)
• Ines Neundorf (University of Cologne, Germany)
• Paras N. Prasad (University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, USA)
• Jae-Chul Pyun (Yonsei University, Republic of Korea)
• Hélder Santos (University of Helsinki, Finland)
• Kohei Soga (Tokyo University of Science, Japan)
• Petra Specht (University of California, Berkeley, USA)
• Orazio Vittorio (Children's Cancer Institute Australia & Australian Centre for Nanomedicine, Australia)
• Nianqiang Wu (University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA)
• King Lun Yeung (The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong)

Symposium Organizers