Jasons Biotech Blog

Biotech from My Perspective

My name is Jason Xu, I am a third year at Northeastern University Studying Bio engineering with a concentration in cell and tissue engineering. This is my blog where I will be talking about my experience in the field of biotech! Blog posts are on this page and newest posts will populate from under here!

Lipid Nanoparticles as Vesicles for Targeted Drug Delivery

Xuexiang Han and Ningqiang Gong from the Bioengineering Department of the University of Pennsylvania have come out with some very novel and interesting ideas on using lipid nanoparticles as a biological drug delivery system. They proposed using a ligand tethered LNP to deliver RNA based drugs to the liver. The liver has been a problem area for these drugs as there are multiple biological barriers that drugs must pass through, but using an LNP may allows them to easily pass through and enter the liver. Read more about it here!

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-35637-z#rightslink.

Han, X., Gong, N., Xue, L. et al. Ligand-tethered lipid nanoparticles for targeted RNA delivery to treat liver fibrosis. Nat Commun 14, 75 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-35637-z

Metal Boride Nanoparticles Have Antibacterial and Anti-Inflammatory Properties

 Yun Meng, Lijie Chen, and Yang Chen from Tongji University have done some super cool research on metal boride nanoparticles. They found that these nanoparticles can have antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties that can help speed up healing of infected wounds, which is helpful in cases of open sores in diabetes patients. These particles differ from previous metal nanoparticles as they utilize a boron trapping strategy that trap chemicals released by dead bacteria that can cause inflammation in wounds. Read more about it here!

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-35050-6

Meng, Y., Chen, L., Chen, Y., Shi, J., Zhang, Z., Wang, Y., Wu, F., Jiang, X., Yang, W., Zhang, L., Wang, C., Meng, X., Wu, Y., & Bu, W. (2022, November 29). Reactive metal boride nanoparticles trap lipopolysaccharide and peptidoglycan for bacteria-infected wound healing. Nature News. Retrieved February 9, 2023, from https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-35050-6

Start of a New Semester!

Starting this year off I will begin the first semester of classes of my third year at Northeastern University. The previous semester I was on co op at Jounce Therapeutics learning all about cancer immunotherapy, but I am excited to be back on campus and in classes again! This semester I am taking biomechanics, biomaterial’s, quantitative physiology, and advanced writing. This is quite a rigorous course load but so far I find all my classes very interesting and am enjoying them very much!