Shaping better nanosystems for drug delivery
Challenge:
There are a number of drug delivery systems employed successfully in the recent times. However, there are still challenges on improving their applications and functionality that need to be addressed, and further advances are still highly needed in order to obtain excellent nanodelivery systems.
Solution:
Nanomaterials’ characterisation is essential for the development of more efficient drug delivery systems and to better exploit their potential applications, as their physicochemical properties define their specific uses. Advanced characterisation techniques can offer unknown insights on nanomaterials that can lead to better shaping them according to their application. Experiments at the CERIC facilities based on X-Ray and infrared spectroscopy techniques (such as the ones available respectively at SAXS and SISSI beamlines) can allow to analyze the structure of nanosystems for drug delivery, and to understand their interaction with different combinations of drugs.
Application:
Looking at insulin for example, it can have different forms, each one with a different degree of biological activity. Experiments with CERIC X- Ray based techniques provide fundamental information on the structure of nanosystems for drug delivery, and on how insulin can modify their symmetry. Moreover, it is possible to gather information about the conformation of insulin when included in the nanosystem. This can be essential to improve the delivery of more biological active forms and a new, more manageable and more controllable method for delivering bioactive insulin.