The Dunn twins, nanoparticles and their fight on cancer

Alex Dunn and Douglas Dunn, the twin brothers are in the media spotlight, all for the right reasons. The 21 year old boys are currently doing their honours thesis in the School of Chemical Engineering under supervision of Dr May Lim (click here to see more coverage on the Dunn’s twins or the ABC news coverage).

The identical twins are the first twins to receive Leslie-J. Fleming Churchill Fellowships (each won separately), a grant established in 1965 to honour the memory of Sir Winston Churchill. These fellowships were awarded to Alex and Doug to study two related aspects of cancer research. Alex’s project is focusing on the use of magnetic nanoparticles coated with polymer and used them as a theranostic agent to facilitate controlled drug delivery. The release mechanism will rely on the magnetic properties of the magnetite core which will allow it to respond to magnetic induction heating.

Doug’s project will focus on using the composite nanoparticles for use in multimodal medical imaging and for controlled drug delivery. The nanoparticles will be seeded with gold nanoparticles to which block copolymers will be attached. A variety of drugs may then be bound to the polymer and released when the particles are exposed to a laser with a particular wavelength. This new medium has shown promising results for use as an ultrasound and MRI contrast agent, testing is also to be performed for its use in CT scanning.

The twins will be spending some time in Royal Institution of Great Britain to use the magnetic induction microscope for their research. What we think of the twins? Well, we are proud of them and wish them all the best for their research.

For more information on their research, contact: m.lim@unsw.edu.au