Using Nanoparticles as Carrier Systems

	Gold nanoparticles in cells

The area of nanomedicine addressing drug delivery is mostly based on employing nanocarriers for drugs. That involves the development of innovative nanoparticles and nanocapsules as drug carrier systems both for new or old drugs. The aim is to enhance the ability to pass the cell/tissue barriers (mucosal lining in the intestine, air-blood barrier of the human lung, blood-brain barrier). This attempt is also combined with an effort to explore novel targeting strategies (preferably combined with bioimaging capacity of the targeted areas). Thus one envisions multifunctional nanoparticles combining all the above mentioned modalities. An additional so far unsolved problem is the difficulty to enhance the uptake of large drugs (e.g. proteins) acting on intracellular targets.

 

It has been decided to address the following challenges:

• The improvement of drug delivery through biological barriers by employing novel types of nanocarriers constitutes one of the central goals of nanomedicine,
• A possible approach to supply on demand drugs linked to nanocarriers is the employment of fully implantable and semi-implantable drug delivery systems.

Concentration on Two Research Projects

In view of the challenges mentioned above recent research concentrates on two projects:

• Diabetes: Developing a semi-implantable device which will carry out detection of glucose level in blood with a feedback to delivery of insulin carried by nanocarriers. In this project there is a competency need of researchers engaged in the fabrication and characterization of micro-needle arrays and novel approaches for a quantitative and repeatable detection of glucose.
• Cancer therapy: Curing metastatic cancer by applying semi-implantable device(s) to the primary tumor. The group concerned with this project is looking for researchers engaged in production and employment of chemotherapeutic agents linked to nanocarriers in cancer research (preferably industry), MEMS based electrical stimulators combined with microfluidic device.

The long term activity of this SRPA group addresses two strategic objectives:

• Developing activity that will lead to the formation of long term research collaboration with industry (e.g. initiation by STREP and IP in the 7th Framework Program of EC followed by industry supported research),
• Forming an expertise reference point for industry, research institutes and society.