Chemistry Research at IIT
Nanoscience
Professor Bishnoi's research group focuses on three areas:
- The design and modification of nanomaterials
- The development of nanoparticle based sensors for biomedical applications
- The environmental implications of nanotechnology
She has recently begun using Daphnia magna as a model organism for understanding the potential toxicity of nanoparticles released into the environment. This new research direction pulls from her expertise in biology, surface chemistry, and material science and will provide guidance into understanding the important design parameters to minimize the effect of nanomaterials on our environment. She is using Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering to track nanoparticle uptake in both Daphnia and cell culture systems to give a semi-quantitative measure of how many particles are taken up by these in vivo and in vitro models and to determine where the particles go once inside the cells (Nano Letters 2009).
Cancer Therapeutics
My research group is broadly interested in areas of organic synthesis, medicinal chemistry, biochemistry, bioconjugate chemistry, and cell biology. The current work at my laboratory is centered on interdisciplinary research projects aimed at developing safe, effective, and targeted drugs for cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. My lab has developed several promising cancer therapeutic and diagnostic agents with successful preclinical profiles that are favorably compared to the existing cancer drugs. We are also interested in synthetic and mechanistic studies of aziridines and aziridinium ions as reactive intermediate compounds in organic synthesis.
