Wenge Liu

Research Interests:

The area of anticancer drug delivery. Current anticancer therapies, such as radiotherapy and chemotherapy, are a double-edge sword as they kill both tumor cells and normal cells. It is essential to develop an ideal drug delivery carrier for maximizing delivery of therapeutically active drug to a tumor and limiting systemic exposure. His research aim is to innovate and optimize such type of carriers. Particularly, he is using a thermally responsive Elastin-like polypeptide (ELPs) to develop anticancer drug carrier applicable to intravenous or intratumoral administration. His research projects have covered every essential aspect in the development of a new drug carrier, such as biosynthesis of biopolymer, radiolabeling of drug carriers, and establishment of animal models, studies of pharmacokinetics and biodistribution, and eventually evaluation of antitumor activities of the drugs delivery by the carrier. Biocompatibility evaluation for biomaterials: acute and chronic toxicity, immunogenicity, blood compatibilities, tissue reaction and Pyrogenicity testing. To provide graduate and Post-Doctoral fellows with training in animal models design and supervise them in their in vivo studies.

Specialties:

Drug Delivery
Biological Materials

Representative Publications: (More Publications)

• Weiping Gao, Wenge Liu, Trine Christensen, Michael R. Zalutsky, and Ashutosh Chilkoti,, In situ growth of a PEG-like polymer from the C terminus of an intein fusion protein improves pharmacokinetics and tumor accumulation, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A (September, 2010) [abs].
• Wenge Liu, J. Andrew MacKay, Matthew R. Dreher, Mingnan Chen, Jonathan R. McDaniel, Andrew J. Simnick, Daniel J. Callahan, Michael R. Zalutsky, Ashutosh Chilkoti, Intratumoral Drug Delivery Using Thermally Sensitive Elstin-Like Polypeptide, Journal of Controlled Release, vol 14 (2010), pp. 2-9 [abs].
• J. Andrew MacKay, Mingnan Chen, Jonathan R. McDaniel, Wenge Liu, Andrew J. Simnick & Ashutosh Chilkoti, Self-assembling chimeric polypeptide–doxorubicin conjugate nanoparticles that abolish tumours after a single injection, Nature Materials, vol 8 (2009), pp. 993 - 999 [abs].
• Weiping Gao,Wenge Liu, J. Andrew Mackay, Michael R. Zalutsky, Eric J. Toone, and Ashutosh Chilkotia, In situ growth of a stoichiometric PEG-like conjugate at a protein's N-terminus with significantly improved pharmacokinetics, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, vol September 8; 106(36) (2009), pp. 15231–15236 [abs].
• Matthew R Dreher , Wenge Liu , Charles R Michelich , Mark W Dewhirst , Ashutosh Chilkoti, Thermal cycling enhances the accumulation of a temperature-sensitive biopolymer in solid tumors., Cancer Res, vol May 1;67 (9) (May, 2007), pp. 4418-24 [abs].
• Trine Christensen1, a, Kimberly Trabbic-Carlson1, a, Wenge Liua and Ashutosh Chilkoti, Purification of recombinant proteins from Escherichia coli at low expression levels by inverse transition cycling, Analytical Biochemistry, vol Volume 360, Issue 1 (January, 2007), pp. 166-168.
• Matthew R Dreher , Wenge Liu , Charles R Michelich , Mark W Dewhirst , Fan Yuan , Ashutosh Chilkoti, Tumor vascular permeability, accumulation, and penetration of macromolecular drug carriers., J Natl Cancer Inst., vol Mar 1;98 (5) (March, 2006), pp. 335-44 [abs].
• Liu, Wenge and Dreher, Matthew R. and Furgeson, Darin Y. and Peixoto, Katia V. and Yuan, Hong and Zalutsky, Michael R. and Chilkoti, Ashutosh, Tumor accumulation, degradation and pharmacokinetics of elastin-like polypeptides in nude mice, Journal of Controlled Release, vol 116 no. 2 SPEC ISS (2006), pp. 170 - 178 [026] [abs].
• Betre, Helawe and Liu, Wenge and Zalutsky, Michael R. and Chilkoti, Ashutosh and Kraus, Virginia B. and Setton, Lori A., A thermally responsive biopolymer for intra-articular drug delivery, Journal of Controlled Release, vol 115 no. 2 (2006), pp. 175 - 182 [022] [abs].
• Liu, Wenge and Dreher, Matthew R. and Chow, Dominic C. and Zalutsky, Michael R. and Chilkoti, Ashutosh, Tracking the in vivo fate of recombinant polypeptides by isotopic labeling, Journal of Controlled Release, vol 114 no. 2 (2006), pp. 184 - 192 [001] [abs].
• Chan, Bernard P. and Liu, Wenge and Klitzman, Bruce and Reichert, William M. and Truskey, George A., In vivo performance of dual ligand augmented endothelialized expanded polytetrafluoroethylene vascular grafts, Journal of Biomedical Materials Research - Part B Applied Biomaterials, vol 72 no. 1 (2005), pp. 52 - 63 [jbm.b.30114] [abs].