Ricerc@Sapienza

Applications of nanosystems are relevant in different items spanning from material science to biomedicine, even though biocompatibility is still an open question. Preparing bioinspired nanoparticles (NPs) with manifold functionalities requires the optimization of their structure, size, shape, surface area, chemical composition, solubility and local geometry, Combination of all such properties ensures perspectives in biomedicine, despite possible toxicity is to be considered.
Hybrids can be functionalized and properly designed by combining covalent and/or non covalent functionalization processes. Therefore, the design of multi-functional hybrids NPs may improve the efficacy of existing formulations and reduce current drawbacks. We rely on a bottom-up approach to get hybrids having performances and properties not occurring in the single components. Size, morphology functionalities, and other physico-chemical features of NPs will be tuned to achieve materials responsive to stimuli such as temperature, pH or ionic strength. The proposal will focus on fluid or semifluid matrices such as:

1. Biopolymer-coated cat-anionic vesicles
2. nucleic acid-wrapped carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and their dispersion in vesicular medium
3. temperature- and pH-sensitive peptide-polymer conjugates
4. temperature- and pH-sensitive lipopeptides
5. temperature- and pH-sensitive cholic acid derivative-polymer conjugates

SAXS, DLS, AFM, electron microscopies (SEM, TEM and cryo-TEM), NMR, circular dichroism, fluorescence, rheology, electrophoretic mobility, and relaxation methods will be jointly used to investigate and optimize size, shape, charge and mechanical properties of NPs. Finally, the toxicity and the interaction between self-assemblies and cells by flow cytometry analysis of the most promising NPs will be assessed.