Nano-enabled Drug Delivery 
and ImmunoEngineering

April 2025

Congratulations to Yanhao for winning the Joseph B. Ryan Memorial Fellowship ($1,600) from the R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy

Congratulations to Mengwen for winning the Academic Excellence Award from the R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy

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Congratulations to Shuang for winning the Outstanding Research Award from the R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy

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Congratulations to Karlie Flader for winning the Outstanding Senior Undergraduate Research Award ($725) from the R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy. Also, big congrats to Karlie for being admitted to the PhD program at the Division of Molecular Pharmaceutics and Drug Delivery at University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy! 

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Congratulations to Minhyeok Kim for winning the Outstanding Senior Undergraduate Research Award ($725) from the R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy. Also, big congrats to Minhyeok for being admitted to the PharmD program at the University of Texas at Austin, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, and University of Arizona

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Huge congrats to Dr. Kui Zeng on becoming an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Science at the University of Padova, Italy. Thank you for your significant contribution to the Lu Lab and wish you nothing but the very best in your future endeavors!  ​Also, big congrats to Kui on being awarded the "PNRR (Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza) European Union's NextGenerationEU (NGEU) Program for Young Researcher" (€250,000, 3 years research support). ​

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March 2025

Congratulations to Dr. Wenpan Li for being awarded the Cancer Research Training & Education Coordination Travel Award ($1,500) from the University of Arizona Comprehensive Cancer Center.

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Jan 2025

Huge congrats to Dr. Zhiren Wang on becoming the Full Professor in the School of Biomedical Sciences and Engineering at the South China University of Technology (SCUT), Guangzhou, China. We thank you for your tremendous contribution to the Lu Lab and wish you nothing but the very best in your faculty position! 

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Sept 2024

Dr. Lu was awarded the University of Arizona Cancer Center Translational Science Award!  

Dr. Lu was awarded the John A. and Frances P. Ware Endowed Professorship! Super appreciative of this recognition! 

Welcome Dr. Zhi Li to join our lab as a Postdoc fellow! 

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Aug 2024

Welcome Dr. Kui Zeng to join our lab as a Postdoc fellow! 

Welcome Karlie Flader to join our lab as an undergraduate researcher! 

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July 2024

Dr.Lu was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure at UArizona R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy. 

Dr. Lu was invited to become the Chartered Member of the NIH Drug and Biologic Therapeutic Delivery (DBTD) Study Section.

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May 2024

Big congrats to our undergraduate researcher, Ethan Lin on being selected for the Amgen Scholars Summer Research Program at UNC-Chapel Hill. The future is bright for you Ethan! 

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April 2024

Big congrats to Yanhao on passing his Comprehensive Written and Oral Exam! Now he is a PhD candidate. Yanhao also won the "Outstanding Research Award" in Pharmaceutics/Pharmacokinetics Track at R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy. Way to go Yanhao!

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Congrats to Dr. Lu on being awarded the University of Arizona Cancer Center (UACC) Internal Pilot Award (IPA)

Congrats to Dr. Lu on being awarded the UACC Clinical and Translational Oncology Program (CTOP) Publication Award

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March 2024

Congratulations to Zhiren and Wenpan, and the Team on publishing the work of "Cholesterol-Modified Sphingomyelin Chimeric Lipid Bilayer for Improved Therapeutic Delivery" on Nature Commmunications! 

Congrats to Dr. Lu on being awarded the UACC Clinical and Translational Oncology Program (CTOP) Publication Award

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Jan 2024

Congratulations to Zhiren and Team on publishing the work of "Camptothesome-based therapeutic combination for enhanced cancer immunochemotherapy" on Biomaterials! 

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Dec 2023

Congratulations to Yanhao for publishing his first 1st author article titled "Lipid-based nanotechnology: Liposome" in Pharmaceutics (https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics16010034). 

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Nov 2023

Congrats to Dr. Lu on being awarded the Departmental Strategic Fund Pilot Project Funding with Dr. Rui Xiong! 

Congrats to Dr. Lu on being awarded the UArizona Cancer Center, Cancer Prevention & Control Publication Award and Departmental Publication Award!

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Oct 2023

Congratulations to Zhiren and Team on the acceptance of the paper entitled "Sphingomyelin-derived nanovesicles for the delivery of the IDO1 inhibitor epacadostat enhance metastatic and post-surgical melanoma immunotherapy" in Nature Communications! 

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August 2023

Welcome Mengwen and Shuang joined Lab lab as the PhD students majoring in Pharmaceutics/Pharmacokinetics. 

Congrats to Dr. Lu on being awarded the UArizona Cancer Center Native American Cancer Prevention (NACP) Mentor Support!

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July 2023

Big congrats to Zhiren on winning the Merck Best Poster Award at 2023 Controlled Release Society Annual Meeting & Exposition

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March 2023

Dr. Lu was awarded an NIH/NCI R01 on developing A Phospholipid-Derived Nanotherapeutic Platform for Improved Colorectal Cancer Immunochemotherapy. Super appreciative of NIH/NCI for this 5-year support! 

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Big congrats to Jinha Chung for being admitted to the PharmD program at the College of Pharmacy of University of Washington-Seattle and University of Arizona. 

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Jan 2023

Wenpan's review article entitled "Nanotechnology-enabled immunogenic cell death for improved cancer immunotherapy" has been accepted for publication in International Journal of Pharmaceutics. Congrats to the team! 

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Welcome Yanhao to join our group as the PhD student. 

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Dec 2022

Dr. Lu was awarded the A. Jay Gandolfi New Investigator Award at UArizona R Ken Coit College of Pharmacy.  

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Nov 2022

Zhiren's article entitled "Camptothesome Potentiates PD-L1 Immune Checkpoint Blockade for Improved Metastatic Triple Negative Breast Cancer Immunochemotherapy" has been accepted for publication in Molecular Pharmaceutics. Congrats to the team!

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Oct 2022

Dr. Lu was featured as the Biomaterials Science Emerging Investigator.

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Aug 2022

Wenpan's review article has been accepted for publication in Biomaterials Science. Congrats to the team! 

 

July 2022

1. Dr. Lu was awarded the Maximizing Investigators' Research Award (MIRA) (R35) from NIH/NIGMS. Super grateful to NIH/NIGMS for this 5-year support!

2. Dr. Lu received the 2022 American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) Pharmaceutics Research Award

3. Zhiren's paper has been accepted for publication in Journal of Controlled Release!

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January 2022

1. Dr. Lu was awarded the PhRMA Foundation Research Starter Grant in Drug Delivery. Thanks so much PhRMA Foundation! 

2. Dr. Lu was appointed as the Director for Pharmaceutics & Pharmacokinetics Track at R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy, The University of Arizona. 

 

August 2021

1. Dr. Lu was interviewed by KVOA Tucson4News to talk about the breakthrough nanotechnology that could be used to improve the fight against cancers. (Article access link: https://rdcu.be/ctWld)

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2. Zhiren's paper entitled "Immunogenic camptothesome nanovesicles comprising sphingomyelin-derived camptothecin bilayers for safe and synergistic cancer immunochemotherapy", has bee published in Nature Nanotechnology. Congrats to the team! Link-1, Link-2, Link-3, Link-4, Link-5, Link-6, Link-7, Link-8

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July 2021

Wenpan's paper entitled "Tumor-Associated Fibroblast-Targeting Nanoparticles for Enhancing Solid Tumor Therapy: Progress and Challenges", has been pblished in Molecular Pharmaceutics. Congrats! Link

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January 2021

Dr. Lu was interviewed by UArizona BIO5 Science Talk Podcast and Video Series for COVID-19 research, 01/2021 (GooglePodcast, Link-1; Youtube)

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December 2020

Dr. Lu was elected as the Secretary of Knowledge Management in Pharmaceutics Section of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) (Link-1)

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November 2020

Dr. Lu was featured as an alumnus by American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists-Pitt Student Chapter 2020 newspaper. 

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August 2020

Jiawei was admitted to the PharmD program at the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy.

Kevin successfully obtained the BS degree and started working in Aero Mist.

Big congrats and best of luck for your future endeavors Jiawei and Kevin! 

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June 2020

Dr. Lu was interviewed by KVOA to discuss the research efforts on developing safer and more effective drugs for the fight against COVID-19. Link

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May 2020

Ziren's paper entitled "Self-assembling Prodrug Nanotherapeutics for Synergistic Tumor Targeted Drug Delivery." has been published in Acta Biomaterialia. Congrats! Link

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April 2020

1. Dr. Lu and collaborators (Drs. X. Ding and Y. Chen) were awarded two Rapid Turn-Around Seed Grants from The University of Arizona BIO5 Institute and Arizona’s Technology and Research Initiative Fund (TRIF) to develop nanotherapeutics to combat COVID-19. Thanks BIO5 and TRIF! Link

2. Dr. Lu was grateful to be a Co-Investigator in Dr. D. Zhang's MEGA R35 Grant from NIH/NIEHS. 

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March 2020

Dr. Lu was awarded a Pilot Grant from SWEHSC P30 from NIH/NIEHS to develop nano-enabled antioxidant to prevent lung toxicity induced by environmental exposure. Thanks SWEHSC!

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April 2019

The Lu Lab was founded!