Wooley Group
Karen L. Wooley, Ph.D.
Acute Lung Injury, Acute Vascular Injury and Fundamental
W.T. Doherty-Welch Chair in Chemistry
Department of Chemistry
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX
P.O. Box 30012
College Station, TX 77842-3012
phone: +1 979 845-4077
fax: +1 979 845-4719
Goals for the Initial PEN Grant
Within the NHLBI-PEN project, the group will synthesize shell crosslinked (SCK) nanoparticles (see figure below), both for imaging and drug delivering. To be able to monitor the SCKs in animal studies, the SCKs will be functionalized with optically-active labels, chelators for radioactive 64Cu (PET imaging) or gadolinium (MRI imaging). Initial tissue targeting, to sites of acute vascular injury, will be based upon labeling of the SCKs with an αVβ3-targeting ligand. The core-shell morphology of the SCKs will be utilized for packaging of pharmaceutically-active agents. In addition, the SCK designs will be extended to those that incorporate hydrolytically-labile and acid-sensitive chemistries to allow their biodegradation for in vivo clearance and also controlled drug release.
Facilities
Wooley’s research group occupies three 750 ft2 and one 600 ft2 laboratories (McMillen Chemistry Laboratory rooms 512, 510, 508, and Louderman Hall room 543), containing sixteen 6 ft hoods, three 5 ft hoods and one 12 ft hood, each equipped with the necessary equipment to perform polymer synthesis and characterization. Specific equipment includes: a high vacuum line, eighteen double manifolds, an ultrasonic processor system, a lyophilizer, a 5000 rpm spin coater, a 5000 rpm centrifuge, balances, refrigerators, freezers, and other small equipment. Instrument rooms are in-built (508A and 508B) to house all of the liquid chromatographic instrumentation and other small equipment. One of the in-built laboratories (508B) is designed specifically for biological and aqueous-based work, and houses an analytical ultracentrifuge, an incubator, freezers, a fluorescence microscope, centrifuges, gel electrophoresis apparatii, a water purification system, and other small equipment. A third instrument room (McMillen 527) houses the dynamic light scattering, a differential scanning calorimeter and thermogravimetric analyzer, and additional GPC instruments. Two atomic force microscopes are located in an additional laboratory occupied byWooley, on the third floor of the adjacent building (Louderman Hall), as this is the ground level and is best for the operation of the instruments with minimal noise and vibration disturbances. Separate space has been designed as a student discussion area.
Aside from the smaller equipment within the synthetic laboratories, three instrument rooms (McMillen 508A, 508B, and 527) house: a gel permeation chromatography system based upon a Waters 1515 Isocratic Pump, 2414 RI detector and Precision Detectors PD2000 dynamic light scattering detector; a Hewlett-Packard HP Series 1050 HPLC system operating as an aqueous GPC system with a Wyatt miniDAWN and Waters Lambda-Max Model 481 spectrophotometer detectors; a Hewlett-Packard HP Series 1100 HPLC with RI and diode array detectors; dynamic light scattering instrumentation consisting of a Brookhaven Instruments Corporation Model BI-200SM goniometer, a model EMI-9865 photomultiplier, a model BI-9000AT digital correlator, and a Lexel Model 95 ion laser (8 watts, c.w. argon); an Olympus IX70 inverted optical microscope; Beckman Coulter Optima XL-I Analytical Ultracentrifuge; and Mettler-Toledo DSC822e and TGA/SDTA851e thermal analysis instruments. Two Digital Instruments atomic force microscopes (Nanoscope MultiMode and BioScope) are housed on ground level and are used extensively by the students and postdoctoral research associates; the BioScope AFM sits inside an acoustical hood enclosure above an inverted optical microscope, equipped with fluorescence and AFM imaging under atmosphere or solution, whereas the MultiMode is capable of AFM imaging under controlled atmosphere and under solutions. Two customized Instec, Inc. heat stages allow for imaging to be performed at reduced or elevated temperatures. Housed together with the AFM instruments is a Gaertner Scientific Corporation, Variable Angle Stokes Ellipsometer, Model L116S.
Infrared (Perkin-Elmer Spectrum BX FT-IR system) and UV-vis spectrophotometers are available in a departmental facility, free of charge. Solution-state NMR spectrometers (Varian instruments 3x300MHZ, 500MHz and 600 MHz) are available in a departmental facility. Transmission electron microscopy (Hitachi H600 microscope) is conducted within a facility located in the Department of Biology at Washington University.
In Wooley’s laboratories, each major instrument has a dedicated PC computer equipped with dedicated acquisition board and proprietary software. Personal and research data are saved on one Windows 2003 server. Another server based on Linux Debian with Apache, PHP, MySql and Postfix provides numerous WEB services to Wooley’s research group and to the members of several external institutions involved in the same research projects. High levels of stability, fault tolerance and availability are addressed for all the servers by the use of RAID technology, backup policy, and redundant and uninterruptible power supply. Security and privacy policies are addressed by using personal password authentication, firewall policies and by providing different levels of access to users. Finally, two laser printers (HP 4000N and HP 6MP) are located in the laboratories and office and are networked to all computers. A departmental Tektronix Phaser560 color printer is accessed via the departmental network system. A Compaq MP2800 portable projection system is used for presentations.
People
Karen L. Wooley, Ph.D.
NHLBI-PEN Principal Investigator and Group Coordinator
W.T. Doherty-Welch Chair in Chemistry
Texas A&M University
phone: +1 979 845-4077
fax: +1 979 845-4719
wooley@mail.chem.tamu.edu
Eileen A. Cler, B.S.
NHLBI-PEN Administrative & IT Services Manager
Department of Chemistry
Washington University in Saint Louis
phone: +1 314 935-7482
fax: +1 314 935-9844
eacler@wustl.edu
Nam Lee
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Chemistry
Texas A&M University
phone: +1 979 862-3054
fax: +1 979 845-4719
nam.lee@chem.tamu.edu
Ritu Shrestha
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Chemistry
Texas A&M University
phone: +1 979 862-3056
fax: +1 979 845-4719
ritu.shresta@chem.tamu.edu
(Lily) Yun Lin
Ph.D. Canidate
Department of Chemistry
Texas A&M University
phone: +1 979 862-3054
fax: +1 979 845-4719
yun.lin@chem.tamu.edu