Nanotechnology is a key technology for medicine. Nanoparticles are big enough to take up and transport drugs but also small enough to be taken up by cells and to use active biological transport mechanisms. This opens a wide potential for targeted transport especially of sensitive drugs over barriers in the body to the area and tissue of interest.
Research in FMZ focuses on nanoparticles for different purposes. Systematic studies regarding the influence of nanoparticle shape, size and surface chemistry on the interaction with cells are one area of interest. Inorganic and organic nanoparticles are used for the identification of suited ligands for the specific uptake of the particles exclusively into defined cellular populations.
A special research area are colloidal hydrogels, so called nanogels. Their high water content predetermines them for the transport of biological macromolecules. We use inverse emulsion techniques as well as cascade reactions of self-assembly and chemical cross-linking in homogenous phase for the preparation of nanogels. Oxidative cross-linking of thiofunctional polymers for example yields nanogels that are stable in extracellular spaces in the body and in the blood, while the reductive cytosolic conditions after cellular uptake lead to rapid degradation of the particles and release of the payload.
Nanotechnology is a key technology for medicine. Nanoparticles are big enough to take up and transport drugs but also small enough to be taken up by cells and to use active biological transport mechanisms. This opens a wide potential for targeted transport especially of sensitive drugs over barriers in the body to the area and tissue of interest.
