Chris Landry graduated with a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Richmond in 1990. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in Inorganic and Materials Chemistry in 1994. After postdoctoral studies in the Materials Research Laboratory at the University of California at Santa Barbara, he joined the faculty in the Department of Chemistry in 1996. He was a Visiting Professor of Chemistry at Harvard in 2007. Prof. Landry also serves as one of the co-directors of the Undergraduate Program in Biochemistry.

Research in my laboratory is focused on the synthesis of new types of porous particles with nanoscopic and microscopic sizes, for investigations at the interface of materials chemistry and molecular biology. We are interested in using these particles to deliver materials relevant to cancer biology, such as chemotherapeutic drugs, DNA plasmids, and shRNA constructs. Chemical strategies are used to modify the external surfaces of these particles with polymers to enhance fusion with cell membranes, antibodies to promote targeting of specific cells, fluorescent molecules to allow the particles to be imaged, or some combination of these functionalities. The internal pore surfaces are loaded with the molecular "cargo", which is fully exchangeable within the cell. Delivery of chemotherapeutics in this manner leads to uptake of at least twice as much drug for a given concentration as compared to uptake of drug alone, leading to increased efficacy of the drug and ultimately cell death. We collaborate with Prof. Brooke Mossman to perform in vivo studies, which have also shown promising results. Our research tools comprise a range of instrumentation, from traditional materials science techniques such as powder X-ray diffraction and solid-state NMR to cell biology techniques such as plasmid growth and extraction, cell growth, and blots.

Hillegass, J. M., Blumen, S. R., Cheng, K., MacPherson, M. B., Alexeeva, V., Lathrop, S. A., Beuschel, S. L., Steinbacher, J. L., Butnor, K. J., Ramos-Niño, M. E., Shukla, A., James, T. A., Weiss, D. J., Taatjes, D. J., Pass, H. I., Carbone, M., Landry, C. C., Mossman, B. T. Increased efficacy of doxorubicin delivered in multifunctional microparticles for mesothelioma therapy. International Journal of Cancer (2011), 129, 233.

Cheng, K., Blumen, S. R., MacPherson, M. B., Steinbacher, J. L., Mossman, B. T., Landry, C. C. Enhanced uptake of porous silica microparticles by bifunctional surface modification with a targeting antibody and a biocompatible polymer. ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces (2010), 2, 2489.

Steinbacher, J. L., Lathrop, S. A., Cheng, K., Hillegass, J. M., Butnor, K. J., Kauppinen, R. A., Mossman, B. T., Landry, C. C. Gd-labeled microparticles in MRI: in vivo imaging of microparticles after intraperitoneal injection. Small (2010), 6, 2678.

Blumen, S. R., Cheng, K., Ramos-Nino, M., Taatjes, D., Weiss, D., Landry, C. C., Mossman, B. T. Unique mechanisms of uptake of acid-prepared mesoporous spheres (APMS) by lung epithelial and mesothelioma cells. American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology (2007), 36, 333.

Cheng, K., Landry, C. C. Diffusion-based deprotection in mesoporous materials: strategies for differential modification of porous silica particles. J. Am. Chem. Soc. (2007), 129, 9674.

* indicates equal contribution

Fulbright Research Scholar (2012)