Devika B. Chithrani BSc, MSc, PhD

Dr. Chithrani leverages nanotechnology to create innovations that advance the care of cancer patients. She is using gold nanoparticles as a radiation dose enhancer in cancer therapy. In addition, she is improving the control we have over highly toxic anticancer drugs used in chemotherapy by developing gold nanostructures and testing their intracellular effect. She was able to show for the first time that gold nanoparticles can be used as a radiation dose enhancer at clinically relevant MeV energies. This work was featured on the cover of the Journal of Radiation Research in 2010. She has been on expert panels at both ASTRO (Largest radiation oncology conference) and AAPM (Largest medical physics conference) to discuss the road map to clinical translation of gold-mediated radiosensitization. She has developed three dimensional tumor models to optimize use of nanotechnology in cancer therapy. This work was featured on the cover of Nano-Micro Letters journal.