Dr. Wong is a Research Investigator in the Michigan Nanotechnology Institute for Medicine and Biological Sciences (MNIMBS) and in the department of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of Michigan in Biological Chemistry (advisors: Professors Ari Gafni and Duncan Steel) where she studied the protein-protein and protein-lipid interactions of the Alzheimer’s related peptide, Amyloid-β using various biophysical and optical techniques.  Dr. Wong joined MNIMBS at the University of Michigan in 2010 where she completed her postdoctoral training with Dr. James Baker, Jr. During her postdoctoral fellowship, Dr. Wong studied nanoemulsion based formulations for use as mucosal adjuvants against different bacterial and viral pathogens.  She worked to characterize how the physicochemical properties of these nanoemulsions impact their adjuvanticity and dictate their mechanisms of immune stimulation in vivo.  As a Research Investigator at MNIMBS, her current research interests extends this work in vaccine development to the study of combination adjuvants and their modes of innate immune activation.  In addition to her work on adjuvants, her other primary research focus is on the development of dendrimer-based nanoparticles for use in the targeted delivery of antibacterial/anticancer therapeutics, and immunomodulating molecules.

Representative publications:

Wong P, Schauerte J, Wisser K, Ding H, Lee E, Steel D, Gafni A.  Amyloid-b membrane binding and permeabilization are distinct processes influenced by membrane charge and fluidity. J Mol Biol, 2009. 386(1):81-96. PMID: 19111557   

Ding H, Wong P, Lee E, Gafni A., Steel, D.  Determination of the oligomer size of amyloidogenic protein beta-amyloid(1-40) by single-molecule spectroscopy. Biophysical J,  2009. 97(3):912-21.  PMCID: PMC2718150

Schauerte J, Wong P, Wisser K, Ding H, Steel D, Gafni A.  Simultaneous single-molecule fluorescence and conductivity studies reveal distinct classes of Ab species on lipid bilayers.  Biochemistry, 2010; 49(14):3031:9.

Brender J, Lee E, Hartman K, Wong P, Ramamoorthy A, Steel D, Gafni A.  Biphasic effects of insulin on islet amyloid polypeptide membrane disruption. Biophysical J, 2011. 100(3):685-92.  PMCID: PMC3030259

Choi S, Myc A, Silpe J, Sumit M, Wong P, McCarthy K, Desai A, Thomas T, Kotlyar A, Banaszak-Holl M, Orr B, Baker Jr, J.  Dendrimer-based multivalent vancomycin nanoplatform for targeting the drug-resistant surface. ACS Nano, 2013. 7(1):214-28.  PMID: 23259666 

 Myc A, Kukowska-Latallo J, Smith D, Passmore C, Pham T, Wong P, Bielinska A, Baker Jr. J.  Nanoemulsion-based intranasal adjuvant induces cell cycle arrest, apoptosis and phagocytosis of antigen-primed epithelial cells by dendritic cells. Vaccine, 2013. 31(7):1072-9. 

Wong P,Wang S, Ciotti S, Makidon P, Smith D, Fan Y, Schuler C, Baker Jr, J. Formulation and characterization of nanoemulsion intranasal adjuvants: effects of surfactant composition on mucoadhesion and immunogenicity. Molecular Pharmaceutics, 2014. 11(2):531-44.  PMCID: PMC4031264

Bharathi S, Wong P, Desai A, Lykhytska O, Choe V, Kim H, Thomas T, Baker Jr. J, Choi S.  Design and mechanistic investigation of oxime-conjugated PAMAM dendrimers as the catalytic scavenger of reactive organophosphate.  J Materials Chemistry B, 2014.  2:  1068-78.

Witte A, Leistra A, Wong P, Bharathi S, Refior K, Smith P, Kaso O, Sinniah K, Choi S  Atomic force microscopy probing of receptor-nanoparticle interactions for riboflavin receptor targeted gold-dendrimer nanocomposites.  J Physical Chemistry B,  2014.  118(11): 2872-82.  PMCID: PMC3983334

Wong P, Tang K, Coulter A, Tang S, Silpe J, Baker Jr. J, Choi S.  Multivalent dendrimer vectors with DNA intercalation motifs for gene delivery.  Biomacromolecules,  2014.  15(11): 4134-45.  PMID: 25285357

Faal T*, Wong P* Tang S, Coulter A, Che Y, Tu C, Choi S, Inlay M. 4-Hydroxytamoxifen probes for light-dependent spatiotemporal control of Cre-ER mediated reporter gene expression  Mol Biosystems,  2015.  11: 783-790.  PMID: 25502239  *Co-first authors

Wong P, Tang S, Tang K, Coulter A, Mukherjee J, Baker Jr, J, Choi S.  A lipopolysaccharide-binding heteromultivalent dendrimer nanoplatform for gram-negative cell targeting.  J Materials Chemistry B, 2015.  3: 1149-1156.

Wong P, Choi S.  Mechanisms and implications of dual-acting methotrexate in folate-targeted nanotherapeutic delivery.  Int J Mol Science,  2015.  16(1):1772-1790.  PMCID: PMC4307333 

Wong P, Choi S.  Mechanisms of drug release in nanotherapeutic delivery systems.  Chemical reviews, 2015. 115(9):3388-432.  PMID: 25914945  

Wong P, Leroueil P, Smith D, Ciotti S, Bielinska A, Janczak K, Mullen C, Groom III J, Taylor E, Passmore C, Makidon P, O'Konek JJ, Myc A, Hamouda T, Baker Jr. J.  Formulation, high throughput in vitro screening and in vivo functional characterization of nanoemulsion-based intranasal vaccine adjuvants.  Plos One,  2015.  10(5):e0126120.  PMCID: PMC4427474

Wong P, Chen D, Tang S, Yanik S, Payne M, Mukherjee J, Coulter A, Tang K, Tao K, Sun K, Baker Jr. J, Cho, S.  Modular integration of upconversion nanocrystal-dendrimer composites for folatereceptor-specific near infrared imaging and light triggered drug release.  Small.  2015. 11(45);6078-90. PMID: 26476917

Mukherjee J, Wong PT, Tang S, Gam K, Coulter A, Baker JR, Jr and Choi SK.  Mechanism of Cooperativity and Nonlinear Release Kinetics in Multivalent Dendrimer-Atropine Complexes.  Mol Pharm, 2015 Oct; 12(12): 4498-4508.  PMID: 26485315

Wong P, Tang S, Mukherjee J, Tang K, Gam K, Isham D, Murat C, Sun R, Baker Jr. J, Choi S. Light-Controlled Active Release of Photocaged Ciprofloxacin for Lipopolysaccharide-Targeted Drug Delivery using Dendrimer Conjugates.  Chem Comm. 2016 Aug 16; 52(68):10357-60. PMID: 27476878