Project

Nanoparticles; Interactions; Surface; Stability; Living matter; Colloidal stabili

Lead
Lay summary
The proposed project describes many aspects ranging from model particle synthesis, colloidal properties investigations and protein profiling in environments of varying complexity, to kinetic adsorption studies and possible future applications. Nanoparticles for biological and/or medical applications are part of the high risk, high payoff global nanotechnology phenomenon. However, the process of converting basic research in nanomedicine into commercially viable products is likely to be long and difficult. Not only do they have to be approved by the regulatory agencies, but also their manufacturing may require significant technological and cultural adjustments on the part of the producers. There is now a slowly growing awareness that our understanding of the interaction of nanoscale objects with living matter, even at the level of single cells, has not kept pace with the explosive development of nanoscience in the past. Within the community, it is now well accepted that material surfaces are modified by the adsorption of biomolecules such as proteins and there is some consensus that cellular responses to materials in a biological medium reflect the adsorbed biomolecule layer, rather than the material itself. However, the importance of the adsorbed protein layer in mediating interactions with living systems has been slower to emerge in the case of nanoparticle-protein interactions and studies slowly start to appear.The project demonstrates that the challenge is ultimately to determine the final surface of a particle in a complex biological environment. In the future it seems that nanoparticles will have to be classified in part by the manner in which they interact with proteins, an approach that has so far not been undertaken by nanoscientists. The need to understand this new surface is gradually accepted and constitutes a serious, maybe even the most serious, limitation in the field. The project is divided in three working groups, dealing with the advanced synthesis and characterization of model particles and the general issue of biological "reproducibility", the behavior of such particles in biological environments, and more profound studies including kinetic studies and future applications to use such particles as probing devices.The obtained results will put us in the position to predict the behavior of the particle. This will will have an impact on the application of nanoparticles in medicine and the relative health and environmental risk assessment of manufactured nanoparticles, both serious bottlenecks in current nanotecnology.

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Last update: 21.02.2013

Active participation

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Communication	Title	Media	Place	Year

Number	Title	Start	Funding scheme

The proposed project describes many aspects ranging from model particle synthesis, colloidal properties investigations and protein profiling in environments of varying complexity, to kinetic adsorption studies and possible future applications. The project demonstrates that the challenge is ultimately to determine the final surface of a particle in a complex biological environment. In the future it seems that nanoparticles will have to be classified in part by the manner in which they interact with proteins, an approach that has so far not been undertaken by nanoscientists. The need to understand this new surface is gradually accepted and constitutes a serious, maybe even the most serious, limitation in the field. Here, I describe my vision how to address the described challenges. The project is divided in three working groups, dealing with the advanced synthesis and characterization of model particles and the general issue of biological “reproducibility” (WP 1), the behavior of such particles in biological environments (including the stability, size and internalization of such particles by cells, the elucidation of adsorption/surface interaction of mostly proteins with such particles, and intracellular targeting possibility) (WP2), and more profound studies including kinetic studies and future applications to use such particles as probing devices (WP3).