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Min-Ho Kim, PhD is an Associate Professor in the department of Biological Sciences. He is also a graduate faculty member in the School of Biomedical Sciences and an affiliate member of Brain Health Research Institute and Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute at Â鶹ÊÓƵ. He earned his PhD in Bioengineering from Pennsylvania State University. He then completed his postdoctoral fellowship in the department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology at LSU Health Shreveport and subsequently in the department of Biomedical Engineering at UC Davis.  Dr. Kim joined Â鶹ÊÓƵ as an Assistant Professor in 2012. His research currently focuses on developing nanomedicine strategies for targeted therapeutics for treating diseases including multidrug-resistant bacterial infections, chronic wounds, and neurodegenerative diseases. His research program has been recognized with numerous grants, including the National Institute of Health (NIH) R01 awards.

Research Interests and Selective Publications

The overall goal of my research program is to develop nanomedicine strategies towards the treatment of various diseases such as bacterial infections, chronic wounds, and neurological disorders. Nanomedicine is a branch of medicine that applies the knowledge and tools of nanotechnology to the prevention and treatment of disease, which involves the use of nanoscale materials, such as biocompatible nanoparticles. My laboratory develops or utilizes various types of nanoparticles by means of harnessing their unique physicochemical properties for the purpose of either directly targeting pathogens such as multidrug-resistant bacteria, disrupting misfolded proteins such as amyloid plaques, or modifying pro-inflammatory environment of diseased tissue towards an anti-inflammatory and tissue regenerative environment.

Targeted magnetothermal stimulation of brain for Alzheimer’s disease: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease affecting millions of people around the world and the first cause of dementia. Despite extensive research efforts, currently there are no effective treatment options for the disease. Amyloid plaques are pathological hallmarks of AD, agglomerations of misfolded proteins that accumulate in the brain. In a healthy brain, these proteins are broken down and eliminated, however, in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients, amyloid plaques clump together between the nerve cells, disrupting neurons and resulting in the progressive cognitive impairment. Our goal is to tackle this issue by applying a minimally invasive non-pharmacological strategy that stimulates brain with high frequency electromagnetic field combined with magnetic nanoparticles. The principal of this approach is to translate the energy of electromagnetic field into mild thermal energy using magnetic nanoparticles as a transducer. The thermal energy can be tuned to impose a thermo-mechanical effect on amyloid plaques as well as trigger biological signal on brain cells towards the clearance of amyloid plaques with higher target specificity.

Related publications

• Dyne E, Prakash P, Li J, Yu B, Schmidt T, Huang S, Kim MH. . Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology, and Medicine, 34:102397, 2021 
• Dyne E, Cawood M, Suzelis M, Russell R, Kim MH. . J Comparative Neurology, 530:1263-1275, 2022

Nanoparticle-based strategies to combat multidrug-resistant bacteria: Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses a huge threat to public health worldwide as bacterial strains continuously evolve to develop resistance to multiple antibiotics, which renders the treatment of multidrug resistant (MDR) bacteria an immediate and formidable challenge. Consequently, there is an urgent need to develop new or non-traditional anti-infective agents that attack a new target with new mechanisms of action. To address this, we are developing novel metal-based nanoparticles (Bi₂O₃ NP, Fe₃O₄ NP, Al₂O₃ NP) as antimicrobial agents by tuning their unique physicochemical properties towards exerting potent antibacterial effects with new modes of action as well as substantially delaying resistance development.

Related publications

• Pant BD, Benin BM, Abeydeera N, Kim MH, Huang S. Biomaterials Science, 10:1523-1531, 2022
• Abeydeera N, Yu B, Bishnu P, Kim MH, Huang S. . Biomaterials Science, 10:474-484, 2022
• Dassanayake T, Dassanayake A, Abeydeera N, Bishnu P, Jaroniec M, Kim MH, Huang S. . Biomaterials Science, 9:7996-8006, 2021
• Wang J, Li J, Benin B, Yu B, Bunge S, Abeydeera N, Huang S, Kim MH. . J Medicinal Chemistry, 64:9381-9388, 2021
• Song R, Yu B, Friedrich D, Li J, Shen H, Krautscheid H, Huang S, and Kim MH. . Communications Biology, 3:529, 2020 []
• Yu B., Wang Z., Almutairi L., Huang S.,and Kim MH. . Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology, and Medicine, 24:102158, 2020
• Almutairi L, Yu B, Filka M, Nayfach J, and Kim MH. .  International Journal of Hyperthermia, 37:66-75, 2020
• Wang Z, Yu B, Alamri H, Yarabarla S, Kim MH, Huang S. .  Angewandte Chemie, 57:2214-2218, 2018

Nanoparticle-integrated scaffolds for wound healing: Wound healing is a complex and dynamic process that involves interactions between different cellular components and mediators. A major pathological aspect of non-healing wounds such as diabetic wounds or burn wounds is characterized by wound infection recalcitrant to traditional antibiotics as well as reduced ability to induce angiogenesis, new blood vessel formation. In view of this, they have been major therapeutic targets for creating new treatments for non-healing wounds. Thus far, each of the above aspects has been separately investigated to a great extent, and many advances have been made in the past decades in each area. However, an integrated approach to simultaneous addressing these issues in a single drug delivery platform has yet to emerge. Our goal is to develop copper nanoparticle-based wound scaffolds that can simultaneously confer the scaffold with anti-infection as well as pro-angiogenic properties by means of harnessing the diverse function of copper, an essential metal for life, on bacteria as well as on human cells.

Related publications

• Yu B, Alboslemy T, Safadi F, Kim MH. . Journal of Investigative Dermatology, 138:219-217, 2018

Courses Teaching

Spring 2023

• BSCI 4/5/70158  Molecular Biology
• BSCI 40600 Writing In Biological Sciences

Fall 2022

• BSCI 4/5/70463 - Medical Biotechnology
• BSCI 40600 - Writing In Biological Sciences