Associate Professor; Director, Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Research,
Vivian L. Smith Department of Neurosurgery, McGovern Medical School
Rachael W. Sirianni, PhD earned her doctorate in Biomedical Engineering at Yale University in 2008, during which time she developed models of drug delivery from polymeric biomaterials. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Diagnostic Radiology at the Yale School of Medicine, developing novel imaging techniques to track the distribution of polymers in the central nervous system. Her doctoral and postdoctoral works were supported by interdisciplinary training grants from the National Institutes of Health and bridged topics including polymeric drug delivery, transport modeling, neurobiology, and imaging.
Dr. Sirianni took her first faculty position in 2011 at the Barrow Neurological Institute, where her laboratory focused on drug delivery and tissue engineering for the treatment of central nervous system disorders. She joined the Department of Neurosurgery at UT in 2018. Her research program here is focused on engineering drug loaded nanoparticles for intrathecal and intraventricular drug delivery in Pediatric Neuro-Oncology
Sessions at Neurovations Events
- Intrathecal Drug Delivery in the Era of Nanomedicine
Select Publications
- McCall, R. L., & Sirianni, R. W. (2013). PLGA nanoparticles formed by single-or double-emulsion with vitamin E-TPGS. Journal of visualized experiments: JoVE, (82).
- Fowler, M. J., Cotter, J. D., Knight, B. E., Sevick-Muraca, E. M., Sandberg, D. I., & Sirianni, R. W. (2020). Intrathecal drug delivery in the era of nanomedicine. Advanced drug delivery reviews, 165, 77-95.
- Zhou, J., Patel, T. R., Sirianni, R. W., Strohbehn, G., Zheng, M. Q., Duong, N., … & Saltzman, W. M. (2013). Highly penetrative, drug-loaded nanocarriers improve treatment of glioblastoma. Proceedings of the National Academy of sciences, 110(29), 11751-11756.
- Cook, R. L., Householder, K. T., Chung, E. P., Prakapenka, A. V., DiPerna, D. M., & Sirianni, R. W. (2015). A critical evaluation of drug delivery from ligand modified nanoparticles: Confounding small molecule distribution and efficacy in the central nervous system. Journal of Controlled Release, 220, 89-97.
- Chung, E. P., Cotter, J. D., Prakapenka, A. V., Cook, R. L., DiPerna, D. M., & Sirianni, R. W. (2020). Targeting small molecule delivery to the brain and spinal cord via intranasal administration of rabies virus glycoprotein (RVG29)-modified PLGA nanoparticles. Pharmaceutics, 12(2), 93.
- Sirianni, R. W., Olausson, P., Chiu, A. S., Taylor, J. R., & Saltzman, W. M. (2010). The behavioral and biochemical effects of BDNF containing polymers implanted in the hippocampus of rats. Brain research, 1321, 40-50.