Associate professor Silvia Muro, Institut of Bioscience and Biotechnology Research &  Fischell Department of Bioengineering, University of Maryland, USA

Smart Nanotherapeutics: Overcoming Body Barriers to Drug Delivery

The design of targeting and carrier strategies to enable delivery of agents (therapeutic or diagnostic) to areas of the body requiring intervention is an active research field. Therapeutic and diagnostic targets are often confined to specific regions or tissues in the body, where proper access may require sufficient transport from the circulation into the respective underlining tissue. In addition, once within the tissue or body compartment of interest, most targets for intervention relate to sub-cellular environments, e.g., the cell surface or different intracellular compartments, further requiring strategies to achieve this goal. Using polymer nanocarriers functionalized with affinity moieties against single or combined cell-surface receptors, along with additional biological signaling moieties, my laboratory focuses on understanding the parameters that regulate transport of drug delivery vehicles across cellular barriers and into cells of subjacent tissues. We examine these aspects using cell culture models with subsequent validation in laboratory animals to correlate molecular/cellular mechanisms with in vivo outcomes. We investigate the influence on targeting and uptake exerted by parameters of design of drug carriers (size, shape, avidity, combination targeting, etc.) and by parameters that are intrinsic to the physiological system (disease status, flow conditions, receptor epitopes being targeted, modulation of regulatory molecules, etc.). The characterization of these complex physiological and design parameters, along with a deep understanding of the mechanisms governing the interaction of drugs and their carriers with their surrounding biological environment, are necessary steps toward achieving efficient drug delivery systems.

Silvia Muro - CV