Dr. Elena V.

Biography

Elena V. Batrakova was born in Moscow, USSR in 1960 and graduated with M.S. degree in chemistry from M.V.Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU) in 1983. In 1987 she obtained Ph.D. in Polymer chemistry at the Department of Polymers, MSU, Russia. She is an Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. The main focus of Dr. Batrakova’s group investigations is on the development of personalized drug delivery systems by loading therapeutics into living cells or exosomes released from these cells. We are taking advantage of white blood cells, monocytes and macrophages that can move toward an inflammation site, cross the blood-brain barrier, and release the preloaded drugs in the brain. We demonstrated that these “Trojan Horses” can attenuate inflammation and produce neuroprotection in mouse models of Parkinson’s disease. Several years ago, my interests expanded to the development of a novel class of vectors, genetically modified macrophages, which carry reporter and therapeutic genes to neural cells. These cells can accomplish ‘horizontal gene transfer” to the inflamed tissues, in particular to the brain. The separate investigations in my lab aims to use exosomes released from macrophagesas drug delivery vehicles to treat pulmonary metastases and brain disorders. Overall, my group has published 87 papers and filed 20 US and foreign patents on the application of drug delivery systems of biologically active molecules. I have 8,259 unique citations with h-index: 45, and i10-index 66.

Research Interest

•Development of cell-mediated drug delivery systems to attenuate neuroinflammation and produce neuroprotection in patients with PD  •Using macrophages as a secondary transfection agents for gene delivery to the brain  •Development of exosome-based drug delivery systems for treatment of pulmonary metastases •Development of polymer-based drug delivery systems for the chemotherapy and brain disorders