Creating Systems that Mimic Nature

Photo of Mary Beth Williams

"Ultimately, we want to mimic biology's ability to do things," says Mary Beth Williams, associate professor of chemistry.

Her hard materials group focuses on making chemically functional magnetic structures and controlling their motion in solution. These magnetic nanomaterials are less than 20nm in diameter, some potentially small enough to cross the blood/brain barrier, which opens huge areas of application in drug delivery and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agents.

Much of this group’s efforts go into creating a library of nanoparticles and developing ways of attaching chemical functionalities to the outside of the particle. With this knowledge, it will be possible to attach a particular drug to the particle in predictable ways. In addition to drug delivery, these functionalized particles could be used for separations—attaching to a particular type of molecule in a solution, for instance, to perform bioanalysis—and in high density magnetic storage.

Williams is working with neurosurgeon Jim Connor at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center to put proteins on particles that target neuroblastomas. His group is using MRI to better image brain tumors with their particles. Her hard materials group has been building models of microfluidic chips and using magnetic fields to control where the particles go. With the hard nanomaterials—functional magnetic particles—Williams sees a real near-term role in bioanalysis, bioseparation, and biomedicine.

Mary Beth Williams, Ph.D., is assocate professor of chemistry, James R. Connor, Ph.D., is university distinguished professor of neurosurgery.

This research brief was featured in the brochure Biomedical Materials.