Oleh Taratula
Research/Career Interests
Currently cancer is one of the biggest public health concerns due to the poor survival rate and the limited efficiency of modern cancer therapies. Conventional treatments, including chemotherapy, use high doses of toxic drugs, which often induce severe adverse effects on healthy organs. Therefore, an ideal anticancer therapy would provide the targeted administration of high drug concentration directly to the tumor for the maximum treatment while limiting degradation of the drug in the systemic circulation resulting in less adverse side effects. In addition, the efficacy of cancer treatment is also limited by the rapid development of tumor resistance. The mechanisms of this resistance are common to most cancers and include “pump” and “nonpump” resistance. Consequently, only simultaneous suppression of both types of cell resistance is capable of substantially increasing the efficacy of anticancer drugs. Finally, in order to optimize the drug delivery and enhance the efficiency of the treatment, it is highly desirable to employ clinically relevant imaging approaches for in situ monitoring of the disease progression and therapeutic responses. Therefore, my research is currently focusing on the development of multifunctional drug delivery systems for combinatorial delivery of siRNA as cancer resistance suppressors, anticancer drugs and real time imaging agents. One promising approach for overcoming the drug delivery obstacle is employing nanomaterials for carrying therapeutic agents specifically to the cancer cells. Nanoparticle interiors could be used as reservoirs for anticancer drugs and imaging agents while their large surface areas could be modified with genes and cell targeting moieties.
Career Links
Credentials
Ph.D., Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, 2008 M.S., Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Ukraine, 2002
2730 S. Moody Avenue
RLSB 4N020
97201 OR
United States
Our research focuses on novel nanomedicines for imaging and treatment of cancer, endometriosis, and other diseases. We are developing multifunctional nanoplatforms for fluorescence-guided surgery, intraoperative phototherapy, magnetic hyperthermia and gene therapy. Our primary objective, which is currently funded by four NIH grants, is to translate the developed nanoplatforms into the clinic.