NanoAthero

“Devel­op­ment and Pre­clin­i­cal Val­i­da­tion of bio­func­tion­al­ized Nanopar­ti­cles for tar­geted deliv­ery of anti-​thrombotic and antiox­i­dant fac­tors to treat Atherosclerosis”

Car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­eases con­tinue to remain our great­est health prob­lem in the west­ern world killing 18 mil­lion peo­ple each year. the erup­tion of a “vul­ner­a­ble ath­er­o­scle­rotic plaque” char­ac­ter­ized by high inflam­ma­tion and increased oxida­tive stress causes 75% of all heart attacks, espe­cially among young peo­ple, which poses as a mod­ern med­ical chal­lenge, the early detec­tion of these plaques and their effec­tive treat­ment. NANOATHERO project, char­ac­ter­ized by an inter­dis­ci­pli­nar­ity, aims to the exploita­tion of Nan­otech­nol­ogy tools in order to over­come the lim­i­ta­tion of exist­ing car­dio­vas­cu­lar approaches. “Smart” biodegrad­able nanopar­ti­cles (BNPs) for site-​specific treat­ment of unsta­ble plaques will intro­duce a unique approach towards the treat­ment of ath­er­o­scle­ro­sis, while the suc­cess­ful encap­su­la­tion of anti-​inflammatory, anti-​oxidant drugs and anti-​thrombotic agents into the nanopar­ti­cles’ core will enduce their active per­for­mance com­pos­ing novel tar­geted drug deliv­ery nanosys­tems. Inno­v­a­tive anti-​thrombotic agents will be syn­the­sized with Pro­tein Engi­neer­ing, for the treat­ment of atherothrom­bo­sis. Through the appro­pri­ate bio-​functionalisation, these biodegrad­able and bio­com­pat­i­ble nanopar­ti­cles can tar­get inflam­ma­tory areas of the arte­r­ial wall, that over­ex­press in patients with car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease. After thor­ough tox­i­col­ogy analy­sis, pre­clin­i­cal val­i­da­tion in in-​vitro ath­er­o­scle­rotic mod­els and ani­mal stud­ies, the clin­i­cal appli­ca­tion of these nanoprod­ucts will be tested. In addi­tion, inno­v­a­tive vas­cu­lar and in vitro ath­er­o­scle­rotic mod­els for BNPs permeability/​transport exper­i­ments, will be devel­oped to reduce the neces­sity of exten­sive ani­mal test­ing. Among oth­ers, the opti­mal drug deliv­ery nanosys­tem, will be cho­sen for ani­mal test­ing of a small group of ani­mals, to study their safety and the qual­ity of their ther­a­peu­tic effect on ath­er­o­scle­rotic vul­ner­a­ble plaque’s areas. The final prod­uct will be an advanced and inno­v­a­tive nanos­truc­tured drug deliv­ery sys­tem that obtains a per­fectly premise of nanocar­ri­ers for clin­i­cal studies.

The role of BL NanoBiomed:

Devel­op­ment Drug Deliv­ery Nanosys­tems for tar­geted treat­ment and their pre­clin­i­cal test in vivo.