dr. Wenjia Xie (PhD)

CRIG member
Wenjia Xie


Postdoctoral researcher – Laboratory of General Biochemistry and Physical Pharmacy – Department of Pharmaceutics – Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences – Ghent University  
Principal investigator: prof. Kevin Braeckmans (PhD)
 

Research focus

Glioblastoma is considered as the most aggressive form of brain cancer with a poor prognosis. While different treatment options exist, including surgical resection, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy, the rapid disease progression demands more effective and targeted strategies. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) offer an attractive option for delivering chemotherapeutics and other relevant effector molecules to the tumor site, thanks to their tumor-homing capacity. 
The common requirement for using MSCs as drug delivery carriers to treat glioblastoma is a technology that can efficiently and gently load MSCs with the relevant effector molecules before being transferred into the patient. One of the most notable and promising examples in recent years is ‘photoporation’, which was originally developed in the lab of Prof. Kevin Braeckmans. In photoporation, photothermal nanoparticles (NPs) are first added to cells in culture along with the cargo molecules. When exposed to short (<10 ns) and intense laser pulses at higher energy, the temperature of the photothermal NPs rapidly rise and exceed the critical temperature of water, resulting in the formation of water vapor nanobubbles (VNBs). The rapid expansion and collapse of these VNBs generate pressure waves that mechanically form pores into the plasma membrane. 
During her postdoctoral fellowship, Wenjia will use photoporation to load MSCs with therapeutically relevant molecules for treating glioblastoma with drug-loaded MSCs, as well as their extracellular vesicles. This will support the development of MSC-related anticancer strategies.      
 

Contact & links