Cancer
Cancer is a systemic disease, with more than 90% of deaths caused by metastases. As a result, it requires systemic therapy. The Housley Lab aims to uncover the role of both the nervous and immune systems in cancer and develop nanostructures that take advantage of the abnormal characteristics of the tumor microenvironment for drug delivery and cancer detection. A major goal of our group is to translate technology from the laboratory to human clinical studies.
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Neurobiology
Much of our group's work involves the studying how the nervous system, cancer, and its treatment interact in mammalian systems. The lab performs foundational studies on the role the nervous system plays in the initiation and progression of cancer and conducts multi-scale preclinical studies to define the determinants of neurologic consequences of cancer treatment.
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Nanotechnology
​Another major goal of the lab is to design and synthesize small technologies to solve big problems. This work involves the use of our existing nanohydrogel platform to precisely deliver therapeutic payloads to primary and metastatic cancer sites. The group also investigates the interactions between nanostructures and biological environments that enable solid tumor targeting.
Current Projects
Development of Nanoparticle Drug Delivery Systems
Our lab has developed a tumor agnostic self-agglomerating nanohydrogel (SANG) platform that preferentially targets and is retained in tumor tissue. This project focuses on investigating the therapeutic potential of SANGs and the synthesis of particle libraries with different therapeutic applications or cargo carrying ability.