Michael J. Sailor: Porous Silicon Nanoparticles as Self-Reporting Drug Delivery Vehicles

There is increasing emphasis on biomedical devices that incorporate graceful or sudden degradation into their designs. For in vivo applications, the material components and their degradation products must also be non-toxic. Although bulk silicon is too stable to exhibit significant degradation in the body, nanoscale silicon is readily degradable and quite biocompatible.

In this plenary presentation, Michael J. Sailor of University of California, San Diego (UCSD) discusses the chemistry and photochemistry of luminescent porous silicon, with emphasis on the self-destruction and reconstruction processes that can be harnessed for various in vitro and in vivo imaging and drug delivery tasks.

Michael J. Sailor is Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UCSD, and he holds Affiliate Appointments in the Bioengineering, the Nanoengineering, and the Materials Science and Engineering programs at UCSD. Trained as a chemist, Sailor received his training at Harvey Mudd College (BS) and Northwestern University (PhD). He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the US National Academy of Inventors, and the Royal Society of Chemistry.