Miao-Ping Chien

TL;DR: Enzyme-responsive peptide-polymer amphiphiles are assembled as spherical micellar nanoparticles, and undergo a morphological transition from spherical-shaped, discrete materials to network-like assemblies when acted upon by matrix metalloproteinases.

TL;DR: Inspired by the utility of DNA as an informational molecule in nanotechnology, DNA-encoded polymeric materials that are capable of in situ controlled, selective, reversible, and user-defined shifts in morphology are reported.

TL;DR: Reversible switching of the morphology of these micelles through a phosphorylation-dephosphorylation cycle is examined and peptide-sequence directed changes in morphology in response to proteolysis are studied.

TL;DR: It is proposed that the material is retained by virtue of an enzyme-induced accumulation process whereby particles change morphology from 20 nm spherical micelles to micrometer-scale aggregates, kinetically trapping them within the tumor.

TL;DR: This paper describes the preparation of the synthetic micellar nanoparticles together with their characterization and motion in liquid water with comparison to conventional electron microscopy analyses, and contends that this technique will quickly become essential in the characterization of analogous systems, especially where dynamics are of interest in the solvated state.