Physician-Scientist, Department of Anesthesiology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School
Healing bones with nanodrones: The next frontier in orthopedic trauma surgery
Injuries from accidents and severe trauma can cause large open bone fractures and, in more extreme cases, large bone defects. Such injuries are prone to poor bone healing and high rates of infection. As a result, orthopedic trauma surgeons are often challenged to stabilize and repair bone injuries, while preventing infection and aiding bone healing. Farokhzad’s team addresses these challenges with small, biodegradable robots called nanodrones that can deliver antibiotics and other drugs to promote bone growth and wound healing in a more efficient way.
Omid Farokhzad, MD, is a physician-scientist in the Department of Anesthesiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School. He directs the Laboratory of Nanomedicine and Biomaterials at BWH. He is a faculty member of the Brigham Research Institute Cancer Research Center and a member of the Dana Farber/Harvard Cancer Center Programs in prostate cancer and cancer cell biology. Farokhzad’s research is focused on the development of therapeutic nanoparticle technologies; most notably, he pioneered the high throughput combinatorial development and screening of multifunctional nanoparticles for medical applications.
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Healing Bones with Nanodrones: An Interview with Omid Farokhzad, MD