Professor Liangfang Zhang

Liangfang Zhang, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor, Department of Nanoengineering and Moores Cancer Center, University of California, San Diego.
 
Liangfang works on the design, synthesis, characterization, and evaluation of lipid- and polymer-based nanostructured biomaterials. One specific interest lies in developing nanomaterials for healthcare and other medical applications, for example, drug delivery to improve or enable treatments of human diseases. In addition, he also seeks to understand the fundamental sciences underlying the arenas of nanomedicine. Overall, his research covers a broad scope of multidisciplinary areas including chemical & molecular engineering, materials science, chemistry, nanotechnology, biotechnology, and medicine.
 
Currently, he is interested in three specific topics: (1) developing multifunctional lipid-polymer hybrid nanoparticles as a robust drug delivery platform that combines the merits of liposomes and polymeric nanoparticles; (2) simultaneously delivering multiple drugs with different hydrophobicity to the same cancer cells for combination therapy; and (3) understanding how single nanoparticles with distinct characteristics interact with biomembranes, with special focus on understanding cellular endocytosis and endosome escape of therapeutic nanoparticles.
 
Liangfang coauthored Quantum Dot-Aptamer Conjugates for Synchronous Cancer Imaging, Therapy, and Sensing of Drug Delivery Based on Bi-Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer, Precise engineering of targeted nanoparticles by using self-assembled biointegrated block copolymers, How to Stabilize Phospholipid Liposomes (Using Nanoparticles), Slaved diffusion in phospholipid bilayers, and Self-Assembled Lipid — Polymer Hybrid Nanoparticles: A Robust Drug Delivery Platform.
 
Liangfang earned his BE and MS in Chemical Engineering at Tsinghua University, China in 2000 and 2002, respectively. He earned his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2006, and did his Postdoc at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 2006 to 2008.
 
Read Nanoparticles play at being red blood cells and Scientists Develop Nanoparticles Cloaked with Erythrocyte Membranes.