Elisa Bindini
Université Pierre et Marie Curie
Elisa Bindini obtained a degree in Chemistry from University of Florence and a MSci in Industrial Chemistry of materials from the University Pisa, Italy. She later moved to Paris, France to pursue a PhD under Dr. Cédric Boissière guidance in the Hybrid Materials & Nanomaterials team within the Condensed Matter Chemistry Laboratory of Paris (LCMCP), focusing on the interface between mesoporous silica materials and biological environments to develop in situ optical analysis.
Mesoporous silica nanoparticles are now widely investigated as biocompatible vectors for drug delivery, thanks to their well-defined and tunable porosity, high loading capacity and the possibility to be functionalized with organic molecules to control cargo release, cell surface recognition, biocompatibility and stability.1
However, the interfacial dynamics of these systems are still unknown. In fact, investigating all the phenomena that take place in vivo is complicated because too many parameters are playing a role at the same time and replacing real biological environments with in vitro model system is often not meaningful to get useful informations. For example, in physiological conditions, the presence of proteins lead to surface adsorption of a protein layer called corona. The protein corona drives the vector’s targeting ability and the cell uptake mechanism as well as the silica degradation rate; moreover it could close the pores, affecting strongly the kinetics of the drug delivery. Furthermore, in vivo conditions presume a flow stream (veins, vessels) which is far from being constant all over the nanoparticle’s path and whose variations can affect greatly the vector interactions and their kinetics.
Consequently, understanding the interfacial dynamic of these therapeutic vectors in real biological environments is indispensable to formulate efficient drug delivery nanocarriers.
We reproduce the structure and composition of mesoporous silica nanoparticles, functionalized with different organic moieties, in 2D thin films and study them through in situ ellipsometric analysis.2
The ellipsometric analysis is fast and can be performed in liquid media. We can thus monitor protein adsorption/desorption kinetics and film hydrolytic intrinsic dissolution in the chosen fluid (protein solutions, serum, blood): this information is critical for drug delivery systems since dissolution drives the drug release and defines the average stay in the body.
All the latter phenomena are studied under a flow stream, to mimic as much as possible the in vivo conditions, monitoring the influence of surface functionalization, pore size and geometry, drug loading and medium flow on the interfacial behavior of mesoporous silica thin films. A special ellipsometric setup has also been developed to use with opaque liquids (serum, blood) to push further the investigation.
Targeted drug delivery and nanocarriers , Microfluidics in nanomedicine and nanobiology
