Peixuan Guo

Director of NIH Nanomedicine Development Center
Professor of Molecular Virology
Professor of Molecular Virology

Departmental research in nanomedicine involves the principle of bottom-up assembly of organized nanomaterials for the construction of nanoscale medical device or therapeutic reagents. Living systems contain a wide variety of nanomachines and highly ordered structures, including motors, arrays, pumps, membrane cores, and valves. The novelty and ingenious design of such nanomachines have inspired some BME faculties to construct biomimetics for medical application. Such studies include the bridging of the knowledge gap at the bio and non-bio interface. The laboratory of Dr. Peixuan Guo, the director of one NIH National Nanomedicine Development Center, focuses on basic questions and fundamental principles concerning structure and function of RNA, as well as the mechanism of viral DNA packaging nanomotor, and then use the knowledge derived from basic studies to solve the practical problems. He revealed that RNA can be used as building block in nanotechnology, and use phi29 motor pRNA to construct nanoparticles as polyvalent vehicles for the delivery of multiple therapeutics including siRNA and drug to specific cells for the therapy of cancers, viral infections and genetics diseases. He also assembled RNA arrays as potential parts in nanotechnology and tissue engineering, and applied RNA nanotechnology for environmental pathogen detection and chemical sensing. His lab also interested in the use of phi29 DNA-packaging motor into membrane to create a pore for drug/DNA loading and subsequence delivery to cells for therapy.

Other related projects in the Nanomedicine program include instrumentation of single fluorophore dual-view imaging system; design and application of biophysical and optical instruments; 3D modeling of RNA and viral DNA packaging motor, and modeling of motor force generation, motor torque and speed, energy transduction.

Fields of Study

Nanomedicine Dane & Mary Louise Miller Endowed Chair Professor in Biomedical Engineering

Affiliations

Colleges of Medicine and Engineering
University of Cincinnati

Website

http://www.eng.uc.edu/nanomedicine/

Contact

The Vontz Center for Molecular Studies
3125 Eden Avenue, Room 1301
Cinti, OH 45267
Phone: 513-558-0041
Lab: 513-558-0024
Email: guopn@ucmail.uc.edu