Research in the Petros group involves interdisciplinary projects spanning chemistry, biology, and biomaterials.  Our major focus is in developing new strategies for targeted drug delivery. Engineered nanoparticles have the potential to revolutionize the diagnosis and treatment of many diseases; for example, by allowing the targeted delivery of a drug to particular subsets of cells.  These therapeutics harness the opportunities provided by nanomaterials to target the delivery of drugs more specifically, improve their solubility, extend half-life, improve therapeutic index and reduce immunogenicity.  Currently, the field of drug delivery focuses primarily on delivering small organic molecules or DNA/RNA as therapeutics and has largely ignored the potential for delivering catalytically active transition metal ions and complexes. Our long-term goal is to couple transition metal reactivity with a delivery vector to induce apoptosis in cancer cells.