Akin, Demir

Administrative Appointments

• Deputy Director, Stanford Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence-TR (2008 - present)

Professional Education

Web Site Links

• Nanomedicine Site

Research Interests

NANOMEDICINE

• Integration of knowledge from biology and engineering to develop foundations in nanomedicine: Cancer Imaging, Biosensors, Intelligent Medical Devices, Medically Relevant Interdisciplinary Nanotechnology
• Engineering of nanodevices, nanoparticles and synthetic biologicals such as peptides, aptamers, molecular beacons, siRNA with built-in intelligence for medical diagnostics and therapy. Conception of experimental therapeutics and their characterization
• Use of bottom up strategies to develop smart multifunctional nanodevices that can concurrently detect, make a diagnostic decision, and respond with a drug release for treatment. Ideally within a long term time frame, these devices will be integrated into biological tissues for long term monitoring of health and disease states or response to treatment particularly in cancer. Exploration and construction of bio-artificial devices with autonomous sensing and medical intervention ability at the single cell level
• Nanomaterials-based controlled drug delivery and tissue targeting in cancers: Multifunctional (tumor targeting moiety+imaging contrast agent+diagnostic biosensor+controlled releaseable nucleic acid or peptide-based experimental therapeutic) nanoparticles as "Smart Nanotherapeutics"
• Synthetic biology: genetically engineered hybrid machines, nanorobotics. Systems biology and reverse engineering of gene networks, signal transduction pathways in health and disease states and also use of these for formation of standard biological parts (BioBricks). Assembly of biologically-inspired nanodevices by using DNA hybridization and synthetic peptides/proteins with known ligands/receptors
• Use of cellular engineering, molecular motors and stimuli responsive polymers for development of micro/nano-devices for drug delivery and biomedical sensing
• Study of the interface between synthetic nanoparticles and cells with the goal of establishment of the foundations of nanomedical...

Publications

• PCR-based detection in a micro-fabricated platform. Bhattacharya S, Salamat S, Morisette D, Banada P, Akin D, Liu YS, Bhunia AK, Ladisch M, Bashir R. Lab Chip. 2008; 8 (7): 1130-6
• A cellular Trojan Horse for delivery of therapeutic nanoparticles into tumors. Choi MR, Stanton-Maxey KJ, Stanley JK, Levin CS, Bardhan R, Akin D, Badve S, Sturgis J, Robinson JP, Bashir R, Halas NJ, Clare SE. Nano Lett. 2007; 7 (12): 3759-65
• Solid-state nanopore channels with DNA selectivity. Iqbal SM, Akin D, Bashir R. Nat Nanotechnol. 2007; 2 (4): 243-8
• Bacteria-mediated delivery of nanoparticles and cargo into cells. Akin D, Sturgis J, Ragheb K, Sherman D, Burkholder K, Robinson JP, Bhunia AK, Mohammed S, Bashir R. Nat Nanotechnol. 2007; 2 (7): 441-9
• Anomalous resonance in a nanomechanical biosensor. Gupta AK, Nair PR, Akin D, Ladisch MR, Broyles S, Alam MA, Bashir R. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2006; 103 (36): 13362-7