Topic description

Despite profuse literature and promising results, very few nanomedicines have been successfully translated to the clinic. For some years now, the poor understanding of the mechanisms controlling the circulation time of nanoparticles (NPs) in the blood stream has been identified as a major obstacle to nanomedicine development.1 Indeed, interactions between NPs and the cells forming the reticulo endothelial system (RES) are known to dictate how fast NP are cleared for blood and these interactions are suspected to be strongly dependent on the surface properties of the particles and on their interaction with proteins.2

The goal of the project is to elucidate the role of surface chemistry and the protein corona forming on NPs, on the pharmacokinetics of NPs in vivo. Various strategies will be explored to characterize NPs interactions with the RES and in vivo. In vitro, large libraries of NPs suspensions with controlled surface chemistry will...