Cancer is a leading cause of death in the developed world. Antineoplastic therapy focuses on systemic treatments for metastatic disease, a point at which long-term cure is rarely possible. To potentially cure cancer, early detection and local control is essential as locoregional recurrence is a clinically relevant, predominant pattern of failure in many malignancies including mesothelioma, sarcoma, lung cancer, breast cancer, and rectal cancer. In collaboration with Dr. Colson, our interdisciplinary efforts are multi-focal to include: 1) mechanistically driven in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo experiments to understand the biology of surgical resection; 2) novel superhydrophobic drug-loaded buttresses for prolonged high dose delivery after implantation during a surgical resection; 3) responsive nanoparticles for image guided resection as well as for targeted tumor drug delivery; and, 4) new antibodies and antibody drug conjugate therapies.