Research

Chronic liver diseases (CLDs) that can result from factors such as metabolic disorders, hepatitis, chronic alcohol abuse, drug-induced toxicities, autoimmune disorders have become a significant global health crisis. Despite the growing prevalence of CLDS globally, there are minimal therapeutic options available.

The Menon Lab is trying to address the challenges associated with treating CLDs by developing drug delivery systems that can target cells that drive disease progression while simultaneously delivering therapies that can reduce inflammation and scarring.

ALD = alcoholic liver disease
PC-1+DEX+INT = Our formulation containing anti-inflammatory therapy

The prevalence of chronic respiratory disease is rising, with more than 30 million cases in the US and over 500 million cases worldwide. Nearly 226,000 people are diagnosed with lung cancer every year. Although the lungs are highly accessible for delivering therapies, biological barriers such as the complex branched anatomy, disease-related airway narrowing, mucociliary clearance, alveolar macrophage uptake pose a formidable challenge to effective drug delivery.

The Menon Lab is developing drug delivery systems with unique biomimetic coatings and cargoes that can overcome these barriers for sustained drug delivery. We are also harnessing our expertise in targeted drug delivery to develop therapeutic formulations that can target and bind to disease-specific markers in lung disease, thus delivering therapies precisely to the areas of interest.

Cells cultured as a two-dimensional monolayer fail to recapitulate the cell-cell interactions and three-dimensional cellular arrangement seen within the body. As a result, they are often incapable of accurately predicting responses to experimental therapeutics in the laboratory.
To overcome some of the limitations of currently used 2D and 3D cell cultures, the Menon Lab has developed collagen-coated porous polymeric microspheres by a controlled pore formation method, to provide a temporary degradable substrate for 3D cell culture.

More recently, we have also developed thermoresponsive microwell arrays using both casting molds and digital light processing (DLP) printing methods, for the high-throughput generation of multicellular 3D cell aggregates (spheroids), which can then be used for assessing cellular responses to therapies. 

   

 

Ongoing projects in the lab are focused on the synthesis of novel bioinks for 3D bioprinting, enabling the fabrication of polymer-based patches and scaffolds for applications in wound healing and regenerative medicine.