Health Nanotechnology

Dr Bella Manshian is a team leader at the NanoHealth and Optical Imaging Group, Translational Cell and Tissue Research Unit in the department of Imaging and Pathology at the Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven) in Belgium. Dr. Manshian is currently leading the group on drug delivery systems and 3D ex vivo Precision Cut Tissue Slices (PCTS) technology. She is an Associate Editor at the Journal of Nanobiotechnology and the Journal of Functional Biomaterials.

Dr Manshian’s main interests lie in developing non-invasive methods for the dual function of visualization and tracking of specific cell types with a strong focus on tumor cells, stem cells, and immune cells while simultaneously delivering therapeutic agents to the target organs.

Her current research projects focus on the generation of polymeric drug carriers for targeted delivery in a variety of diseases. To enhance targeting efficacy, she is exploring multiple means of cell-based delivery. Dr Manshian is an expert in studying cell-nanoparticle interactions, focusing on high-throughput and high-content, automated screening methodologies. Her lab has, in recent years, developed the PCTS model which more closely recapitulates the in vivo environment since these tissues are kept live in culture for a prolonged period. Dr Manshian’s group actively work on PCTSs from mouse and rat lungs, brain, kidney, pancreas and liver tissues and human intestinal, brain, and ovarian cancer tissues. Furthermore, Dr. Manshian is an expert in multimodal and multiparametric in vivo imaging, of preclinical animal models, to assess disease mechanisms and therapy accompanied with screening of individual nanoparticle toxicity, the mechanisms involved and cellular-nanoparticle interaction kinetics.

Dr Manshian has obtained her PhD at the Faculty of Medicine in Swansea University, United Kingdom. During her PhD studies, Dr. Manshian worked as a part time research assistant at Swansea School of Medicine to do cohort studies on child developmental medicine investigating the genetic and environmental causes of variation in infant immunity and assessing their role in the subsequent development of allergy and other immune-mediated disorders in childhood. Following from this work Dr Manshian continued working in a collaborative project with world leaders in stem cell therapy: Celgene Cellular Therapeutics, USA. This was one of the first research studies in the UK to investigate supplementing stem cells from placental cord blood with stem cells from the placenta. The project was in partnership with NHS Trust and Singleton hospital, Swansea.

In 2009, Dr Manshian returned to the genetic toxicology group within the Swansea School of Medicine to work in the nano(geno)toxicology and nanoimaging group. Dr Manshian’s work focused on the genotoxic potential of engineered nanomaterials such as single walled carbon nanotubes and quantum dots in human cell lines using various toxicology assays along with high resolution imaging and atomic force microscopy investigating the physical and chemical properties as well as the genetic alterations induced by these nanomaterials. High-throughput genotoxicity screening tests are used to determine the genotoxicity of nanomaterials and to understand the mechanisms underlying their genotoxicity.

Dr Hyung-Jun Im, MD, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor and Associate Dean at the Graduate School of Convergence Science and Technology, Seoul National University, Republic of Korea. He is also the principal investigator at the Translational Molecular Imaging and Theranostics Lab (http://tmtl.snu.ac.kr/) at Seoul National University.

Dr. Im earned his MD degree from the School of Medicine at The Catholic University of Korea in 2007 and underwent residency and fellowship training in Nuclear Medicine at Seoul National University Hospital. He also earned a Ph.D. degree from the Department of Molecular Medicine and Biopharmaceutical Sciences at Seoul National University in 2015 and completed two years of post-doctoral training in the Department of Radiology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dr. Im conducts leading research in the fields of nuclear medicine, nanomedicine, and theranostics. He has authored 87 research papers in these fields (H-index = 31), including works in Nature Biomedical Engineering, Journal of Nuclear Medicine, Radiology, ACS Nano and Theranostics. Additionally, he has written 6 chapters in textbooks related to nuclear medicine and nanomedicine, and holds a record of 15 patent applications, 3 patent registrations, and 2 technology transfers.

In terms of professional affiliations and leadership roles outside his university professorship, Dr. Im has been an active member of the Young Korean Academy of Science and Technology (Y-KAST) since 2022. He has also served as Associate Editor for the Journal of Nanobiotechnology since 2021. He has held positions of Planning Director of the Korean Society of Nanomedicine and Assistant Academic Director of the Korean Society of Nuclear Medicine. Furthermore, he is a co-founder and the Chief Scientific Officer of Portrai Inc.

Dr. Im has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors, showcasing his expertise and significant contributions to the field. In 2022, he was honored as a member of the Young Korean Academy of Science and Technology (Y-KAST). A year prior, in 2021, he was spotlighted in the "Ones to Watch" by the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging. Dr. Im was recognized as a SNU (Seoul National University) Creative-leading young researchers in 2019, a year which also saw him receiving the Asian Young Investigator Award from the Japanese Society of Nuclear Medicine, and The Best Paper Award from the Korean Society of Nuclear Medicine. His excellence in research was also acknowledged at the Korea-U.S. Forum on Nanotechnology with The Best Poster Award, following a similar recognition at the prior forum in 2018. Also, Dr. Im received the Young Investigator Award by the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging in 2016.