Professor Hiroshi Matsui in the Department of Chemistry teaches courses in biophysical chemistry and physical chemistry. His research focus is bionanotechnology, nanotechnology, biomaterials, sensors, electronics, medical imaging and quantum computing.
Courses taught have included:
After engineering a variety of peptide/protein assemblies (Chem. Soc. Rev., (2010) 39, 3499-3509), biomimetic autonomous motors (Nature Mater., (2012) 11, 1081-1085), and enzyme-mimicking peptides (J. Am. Chem. Soc., (2014) 136, 15893-15896), my nanotechnology labs have grown various nanoparticles including inorganic nanocages (Nature Commun., (2014) 5, 3870). Currently my lab is focused on medical applications of nanotechnology, including nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems, medical imaging, and lab-on-a-chip cancer diagnostic devices. In connection to this proposal, characteristic mechanical property of cells can be measured by nanoscale force measurement of atomic force microscopy (AFM) and by this analysis cancer cells could be distinguished from non-cancerous cells (i.e., more aggressive cancer cells become softer), (Anal. Chem., (2009) 81, 10167) (this work was highlighted in National Cancer Institute). This approach could also be applied to rank the aggressiveness of cancer cells (PloSOne, 9(6): e99351). For the area of medical nanotechnology, recently we developed novel iron oxide nanocages (IO-nanocages) as anti-cancer drug carriers (Nano Lett., (2016) 16, 7357-7363).
The cytotoxicity of anticancer drugs delivered by the IO-nanocage carriers is enhanced more than four-fold as compared to conventional drug delivery methods due to the characteristic cage shape. This invention is promising to develop drug carriers that increase the tumor-targeting specificity in vivo as the shape and size of nanocages are designed to enter leaky tumor-specific blood vessels (Oncology Rep., (2020) 43, 169-176). Magnetic property of nanocage leads to their application in a strong contrast agent in non-invasive magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Magnetic nanocages undergo spinning motion in alternating magnetic fields (170kHz) due to strong Brown relaxation phenomenon, and this spinning is applied to release genes from nanocages at controlled time and location. An advantage of this gene delivery system is to diffuse RNAs with strong centrifugal force in cells so that RNAs could have efficient transfection. More recently, in collaboration with Lyden group at Weill Cornell, mechanical property and structure of a various types of exosomes (i.e., Exo-L, Exo-S, Exomere in various cell lines) were analyzed and the correlation between the mechanical property and the biological function of each exosome was suggested (Nat Cell Biol. (2018) 20, 332-343). Matsui is also interested in This PI is well established in the fields of nanotechnology, material fabrications, exosomes biology, cancer biology, and medical imaging.
Dr. Hiroshi Matsui