Molecular Medicines for Cancer

Deepak Chitkara is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Pharmacy, Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS)-Pilani, Vidya Vihar Campus, India. He obtained his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), SAS Nagar, India. He was an exchange research scholar at University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, TN for one year. After that he did his post-doctoral training at University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE in the area of nanomedicines for pancreatic cancer. His research interests include the nano-based delivery systems for small molecules, miRNAs, and CRISPR/Cas genome editing tools. He has been working in the area of nanotechnology since 2007. Dr. Chitkara has developed and taught courses on "Advanced Drug delivery systems" and Advanced Pharmaceutical Technology to students of the Department of Pharmacy, BITS-Pilani. The mechanisms, designing, delivery, and therapeutic applications of small molecules, proteins and peptides and RNAi are extensively discussed in these courses. Anupama Mittal is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Pharmacy, Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS)-Pilani, India. She obtained her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), SAS Nagar, India, India and was a post-doctoral Research associate at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE. She has been associated with several classroom courses entitled, Advanced Physical Pharmaceutics, Physical Pharmacy, Instrumental methods of analysis and Pharmaceutical Administration and management. She has also been teaching these courses to the industry professionals of different pharmaceutical industries including Lupin, Wockhardt, Sun Pharma etc. Her research interests include nanomedicines and exosomes for the treatment of cancer and diabetes and regenerative medicine. Her research group is also actively engaged in developing self-assembling drug conjugates for disease treatment. Her work has been published in several high impact journals of high repute and she has filed 2 product patents also. Ram I. Mahato is a Professor and Chairman of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE. He was a professor at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Research Assistant Professor at the University of Utah, Senior Scientist at GeneMedicine, Inc., and as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, Washington University in St. Louis, and Kyoto University, Japan. He received PhD in Drug Delivery from the University of Strathclyde and BS from China Pharmaceutical University. Dr. Mahato has published 140 papers, 17 book chapters, holds 2 US patents, and has edited/written eight books and ten journal issues (Total Google Citations= 9554 and h-Index =56). He was a Feature Editor of the Pharmaceutical Research (2006-2013) and Editorial Board Member of eight journals. He is a CRS and AAPS Fellow, Permanent Member of BTSS/NIH Study section, and ASGCT Scientific Advisor. He is applying sound principles in pharmaceutical sciences in the context of the latest advances in life and material sciences to solve challenging drug delivery problems in therapeutics.

Section I: Nanotechnology-Based Approaches to Target Cancer 1. Nanomedicines for Cancer 2. Effect of Nanocarrier Size/Surface on Molecular Targeting in Cancer 3. Nanocarrier Systems for Anticancer Drug Delivery at the Subcellular Level 4. Chemo-Resistance Reversal Using Nanomedicines 5. Multifunctional Dendrimers as Cancer Nanomedicines: Peptide-Based Targeting 6. Targeting the Tumor Microenvironment 7. Novel Nanoparticulate Drug Delivery Systems for Active Ingredients of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Cancer Therapy Section II: Imaging Technologies in Cancer 8. Noninvasive Imaging in Clinical Oncology: A Testimony of Current Modalities and a Glimpse into the Future 9. Multifunctional Nanocarriers as Theranostic Systems for Targeting Cancer 10. Emerging Nanotechnologies for Cancer Immunodiagnosis and Cancer Immunotherapies Section III: Oligonucleotides and Gene-Based Therapies 11. Nucleic Acid Nanotherapeutics 12. Long Non-Coding RNA and Cancer 13. miRNA Therapeutics to Target Multiple Molecular Pathways: Current Status, Challenges, and Future Prospects 14. Alliance of Lipids with siRNA: Opportunities and Challenges for RNAi Therapy 15. Lipid Nanocarriers for RNAi-Based Cancer Therapy 16. Advancements in Polymeric Systems for Nucleic Acid Delivery 17. Self-Assembling Programmable RNA Nanoparticles: From Design and Characterization to Use as an siRNA Delivery Platform 18. DNA Repair and Epigenetics in Cancer 19. Genomic Engineering Utilizing the CRISPR/Cas System and Its Application in Cancer