Huynh Tien Duc Le

Duc Le joined the group of Prof. Jan C. M. van Hest from June 2018. He is the postdoctoral researcher for the project aiming at developing thermoresponsive nanomaterials for anticancer treatment.

Duc trained at the University of Tokyo, Department of Chemical System Engineering. He obtained his Ph.D. degree with the work on designing and developing double hydrophobic elastin-like block polypeptides. His designed block polymers can assemble into flexible beaded nanofibers applicable for tissue engineering.

He started his journey to Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine to gain further experiences in Drug Delivery and Nanomedicine. His targeting material is potato virus X, a plant virus with a filamentous structure that can be functionalized via chemical reactions or genetic fusion to display various therapeutic drugs, which were laterally tested in vitro and in vivo showing tumor inhibiting at high efficiency.

In the current project, he and the team aim to develop a clinically relevant drug delivery system from diblock elastin-like polypeptides with multifunctional modules that can target and destroy cancer cells in controlled manners, i.e. light or heat, for ovarian cancer treatment.