第28期

Ndumiso Vukile Mdlovu (杜米), a PhD student from the Kingdom of Eswatini who, under the supervision of Professor Kuen-Song Lin represented the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at Yuan Ze University to present at the 26th National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center Annual User Meeting and Workshops and won a prize for an outstanding research and presentation in the Materials Science field. The tittle of the presentation was the Formulation and Characterization of Polymerized Magnetic SBA-15 Mesoporous Nanocarrier for Targeted Doxorubicin Delivery in Cancer Treatment.

The National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center (NSRRC) is a research facility in Taiwan (R.O.C.) that offers opportunities to local and international young scholars and researchers to conduct their synchrotron radiation experiments. Ndumiso Vukile Mdlovu杜米 is one of the students who have benefited from NSRRC through several training workshops and to further conduct research in the facility. His research is focused on nanotechnology based formulations and characterizations of drug conjugated nanomaterials used for drug delivery in cancer treatment. The successful development of this drug delivery technology will help in overcoming the limitations of chemotherapy. The prescription the current chemotherapeutic drugs has brought numerous side effects to patients. Thus, Vukile, through the supervision of Professor Kuen-Song Lin is currently developing a multifunctional drug delivery system (nanocarrier) which will address the limitations of chemotherapy by being able to deliver cancer drugs by targeting tumorous cancer cells in the body of human being without harming normal tissues and cells.

Through collaborative projects with the team of Dr. Chen Yun from Far Eastern Memorial Hospital and Meng-Tzu Weng of National Taiwan University Hospital, in-vitro and in-vivo experiments are performed at the hospital laboratories. In addition, in cooperation with the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization (ANSTO) and the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC) through the NSRRC, Vukile has been able to travel to Australia and Japan several times to conduct further characterizations and analysis of the developed drug delivery system. The respective facilities in Australia and Japan provide small-angle neutron scattering technology. Through this technology, analysis of the microstructure, drug loading and release mechanism, interaction between the developed nanocarrier, polymer, drug/gene, particle distribution and dispersion are obtained.