Nanovesicle development for nucleic acid delivery and advanced imaging applications – progress and challenges

Mariana Köber, ICMAB-CSIC, Spain

Monday 9th December 2024, 12.00 PM

ICMAB - Sala d'Actes Carles Miravitlles and ONLINE (Register here)

Abstract

Nanotechnology offers a versatile and powerful toolbox to answer unmet medical needs. More than 50 nanomedicine formulations have reached the market by now, with the approval of lipid nanoparticle-based mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 marking one of the major milestones. Despite the progress made, several hurdles remain for a more widespread arrival of nanomedicines to the clinics, mainly related to an inefficient delivery to many target tissues in the body, difficulties to achieve a standardized product quality under scaled-up manufacturing, and an insufficient characterization of critical quality attributes and critical process parameters. In this seminar, I will discuss the progress we have made in the development of i) nanocarriers for the delivery of therapeutic RNAs and ii) fluorescent nanoprobes for bioimaging and sensing, highlighting the strategies we follow to tackle the above-named challenges.

Short bio

 Mariana Köber is researcher of Nanomol-Bio group at the Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona and the Spanish Biomedical Research Network for Bioengineering, Biomaterials and Nanomedicine. Her research focuses on the design and development of nanostructured materials for biomedical applications. She obtained her PhD in Condensed Matter Physics from the Autonomous University of Madrid and performed postdoctoral research at the department of Bionanoscience of TU Delft.

Hosted by Nora Venotsa, Nanomol-Bio Group, ICMAB-CSIC