Interests

RESEARCH INTERESTS

The research which will be developed in Jitianu's Laboratory in the Department of Chemistry at Lehman College will be focused on two important directions:

- Study on Hybrid Organic-Inorganic Melting Gels � hybrid glasses that melt at very low temperatures (~150C) with direct applications in electronic and optic-electronic industry.

- Develop new silica based carriers for targeting the cancer cells and for Drug Delivery of taxanes, placixel and docetaxel.

Melting Gels

� Melting Gels are hybrid organic-inorganic materials prepared by sol-gel process.
� �Melting gels� are organic-modified silica gels, which are:
               � solid at room temperature,
               � become fluid at a temperature T1,
               � again become solid, and no longer soften after thermal treatment at consolidation
                  temperature T2 (T2 >T1);
               � at T2, cross-linking becomes complete.
� The process of melting-solidification-re-melting can be repeated, as long as the cross linking is not complete.

Melting Gels have the potential to act as low temperature seals for hermetic barriers in microelectronic industry as hermetic barriers for devices, such as Micro-Electromechanical Systems (MEMS), Thin Film Transistors (TFTs), and Organic-Light Emitting Diodes (OLEDs).

Hermetic isolation of OLEDs for atmospheric oxygen and moisture is necessary to increase the lifetime of OLEDs. The goal of our research group willl be to use the hybrid melting gels as a hermetic barrier.

Drug Delivery

The taxanes, placixel and docetaxel are highly hydrophobic anticancer agents. "Drug Carriers" will be developed by using the sol-gel chemistry. We plan to develop mesoporous monodisperse silica (SiO2) nano-particles (~200-300 nm) with the drug embedded in the pores.
The surface of the particle-drug composites will be functionalized with the specific antibody in order to target cancer cells. The antibody will link the particle-drug to the cancer cell surfaces. The drug will be released very slowly from the pores of the particles directly to the cancer cell surfaces.