A presentation by Wichita State bioengineering assistant professor Anil Mahapatro caught senior bioengineering major Joshua Palacios’ attention last summer.

After Mahapatro told Palacios about the opportunity for drug delivery device research, Palacios started working.

“I jumped at the opportunity,” Palacios said. “It was a chance to make my research matter. I wanted to gain a better understanding…to know what are options for people who are sick with major illnesses, as far as their medication.”

Palacios’s research was focusing on heart stints and available cancer treatments when he became fascinated with drug treatments that can target a specific area of the body.

Palacios said chemotherapy, radiation and current drug treatments on the market right now pump medication that affects the entire body. If a person gets too much treatment, certain organs can shut down, and if they don’t get enough medication, cancer or illness can reoccur.

His professor researched drug delivery devices, but Palacios’ reading proved the need for a specific drug delivery device other than the stints and chemotherapy currently in use.

“It excited me to learn more,” Palacios said. “Progress in the medical field takes years because of regulations, but if I had a hand in getting [another] device out there, that is a good feeling.”

He built a model for how much medication a person needs to cure the heart disease or cancer and developed ways to test it.

Palacios traveled to Topeka in February to share his findings to members of the Kansas Board of Regents. Along with 10 other students with their own unique projects, Palacios presented his findings and model for two hours.

“It was different than anything I have done,” Palacios said. “In bioengineering, there is an answer to assignments. This project still has a long way to go, and there wasn’t an exact answer to fix the problem medical patients face because of all the loop-holes.”

Palacios said the next step in his project could be medical trials or more research to improve his model. Palacios said another student would likely take over his research after he graduates in May.

He said this project has helped spark his interest in graduate school, and he recently heard back on it from Georgia Tech University.

“I don’t know what the future holds,” Palacios said. “But I wasn’t considering going into the medical field near as much as I am now, before I started this project.”