Co-hosted by Georgia Tech's Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. 

Daniel Heller
Cancer Nanomedicine Laboratory, Lab Head
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

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ABSTRACT
We develop methods to accelerate the research, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer and allied diseases via delivery and sensor nanotechnologies. We believe that better cancer therapeutics and diagnostics can be developed through nanomedicines.

We investigate methods to enable therapeutics to translocate tissue barriers via targeted drug delivery strategies. We developed machine learning processes to facilitate the encapsulation of many drug classes into nanoparticles, based on drug molecular structure, facilitating the rapid synthesis of diverse nanotherapeutics. We also found that P-selectin, expressed endogenously on activated endothelium in tumors, can be used as a nanotherapeutic target improve the efficacy of precision therapies and to abrogate dose-limiting toxicities, to improve overall therapeutic index. P-selectin can also be induced via ionizing radiation, enabling target enhancement in tumors. We also found that endothelial targeting can improve delivery across intact blood-brain barrier for the treatment of intracranial tumors and metastases, by activating transendothelial transport.

We develop optical nanosensor technologies using carbon nanotubes to facilitate the screening, diagnosis, and monitoring of diseases, and to build new assays for cancer drug development. These technologies employ the bandgap fluorescence of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) which emit in the near-infrared “tissue transparent” window and can respond to analytes down to the single-molecule level. We have developed new sensors for the detection of metabolic changes in live cells and tissues, as well as a liquid biopsy platform for the detection of diseases in the absence of known biomarkers, via an optical nanosensor array that collects large response data sets, processed by machine learning algorithms.

The Pat and Ian Cook Doctoral Program in Cancer EngineeringHis research group is known for the development and application of drug delivery technologies and nanoscale probes to address research and clinical problems. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed publications, is an inventor on over 20 pending or issued patents, and he established several active startup companies to advance these technologies to industry practice or clinical trials. Dr. Heller’s laboratory has pioneered several areas, including: the identification of P-selectin as a nanotherapeutic target for drug delivery to cancers including brain tumors, drug delivery technologies for the targeting of experimental therapeutics to the kidneys, carbon nanotube-based sensors for diagnostic implants and drug discovery, a liquid biopsy molecular perception diagnostic platform, nanochemical biology tools for the investigation of autophagy and lipid dysregulation in vivo, and data analytics for the development of nanomedicines. Weill Cornell Graduate School

Pharmacology Teaching and Mentoring Award, a 2021 American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) Fellow, a 2023 awardee of the UM Ventures Life Science Invention of the Year, and a 2024 University of Illinois College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Young Alumni Awardee.

BIO
Heller obtained his Bachelor’s degree in History from Rice University in 2000 and Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2010, working in the laboratory of Michael Strano. He completed a Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in the laboratory of Robert Langer at the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT in 2012. He is a 2012 recipient of the National Institutes of Health Director’s New Innovator Award, a 2015 Kavli Fellow, a 2017 recipient of the Pershing Square Sohn Prize for Young Investigators in Cancer Research, a 2018 American Cancer Society Research Scholar, a 2018 NSF CAREER Awardee, a 2018 recipient of the CRS Nanomedicine and Nanoscale Drug Delivery Focus Group Junior Faculty Award, the 2020 Pharmacology Teaching and Mentoring Awardee from Weill Cornell Graduate School, and a 2021 American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) Fellow.