Publications by authors named "Donna Leung"

The objective of this study was to use ultrasound in combination with nanoparticulate formulations of taxane drugs for an additive approach to overcome multidrug resistance (MDR). Polymeric nanoparticulate formulations containing both chemotherapeutic taxane drugs and a polymeric inhibitor (MePEG-b-PCL) of drug resistant proteins have been previously developed in an attempt to overcome MDR in cells. High frequency (>1 MHz) ultrasound has been shown to increase the uptake of cytotoxic drugs in MDR proliferating cells and has been suggested as a different way to overcome MDR, resensitize drug resistant cancer cells and allow for chemotherapeutic efficacy.

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Background: Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) is helpful in situations where a drug has a narrow therapeutic index, a drug dosage does not reliably predict serum concentration, or a serum drug concentration has surrogate value (i.e., is reflective of clinical outcomes).

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Obesity is a state of positive energy balance where excess white adipose tissue accumulates to the detriment of metabolic health. Improving adipocyte function with systemic administration of thiazolidinediones (TZDs) improves metabolic outcomes in obesity, however TZD use is limited clinically due to undesirable side effects. Here we evaluate magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) as a tool to target rosiglitazone (Rosi) specifically to adipose tissue.

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Article Synopsis
  • Researchers developed nanoparticles using methoxy poly(ethylene glycol)-block-poly(caprolactone) (MePEG-b-PCL) copolymers to encapsulate and deliver the taxane drugs paclitaxel (PTX) and docetaxel (DTX).
  • The nanoparticles, which were about 80 nm in size, allowed for high drug solubility and demonstrated controlled release over 14 days.
  • These nanoparticles also included a P-glycoprotein (P-gp) inhibitor, enabling them to reduce the viability of drug-resistant cells and restore sensitivity to taxane treatments.
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  • Significant progress has been made in treating chronic-phase chronic myeloid leukemia (CP-CML), yet there is a strong need for curative options and better ways to predict patient responses and disease relapse.
  • The study compared three methods for quantifying primitive CP-CML cells and found that two conventional methods overestimate cell prevalence compared to a new third method.
  • Additional experiments showed that CML-CD34(+) cells can sustain themselves and maintain a specific differentiation in mouse models for over a year, highlighting the importance of long-term studies in understanding CP-CML stem cells.
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Delayed recovery of mature blood cells poses a serious, expensive, and often life-threatening problem for many stem cell transplantation recipients, particularly if heavily pretreated and serving as their own donor, or having a CB transplantation as the only therapeutic option. Importantly, the different cells required to ensure a rapid, as well as a permanent, hematopoietic recovery in these patients remain poorly defined. We now show that human CB and mobilized peripheral blood (mPB) collections contain cells that produce platelets and neutrophils within 3 weeks after being transplanted into sublethally irradiated NOD/scid-IL-2Rγc-null mice.

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