Generation of nanoparticels with tunable surface wettability and surface functionalitiy to cross hydrophilic/hydrophobic interfaces of biological barriers

关于纳米粒子在生物医学中的潜在用途，人们有很多猜测。阻碍纳米粒子在体内生物医学应用的巨大挑战之一是跨越生物障碍。水性生物环境要求纳米颗粒具有高度亲水性的表面。相反，所有的生物屏障，如脑、肺和皮肤，都包含疏水-亲水界面，因此疏水表面应该有利于纳米颗粒穿过这些屏障。为了满足这两种相互矛盾的纳米颗粒跨越生物屏障的需求，本项目致力于制备表面可调纳米颗粒，其表面功能如电荷性质和密度、润湿性、与生物分子的结合能力可以通过环境刺激来调节。这种创新的表面行为将依赖于用刺激响应型聚合物刷子覆盖纳米颗粒，这些刷子是通过接枝和接枝策略获得的。我们将系统地研究纳米粒子的表面性质、表面对环境刺激的响应与聚合物封端的局部结构之间的关系。基于纳米颗粒的刺激可调表面特性，将与合作伙伴密切合作，研究颗粒物理化学特性的响应，如磁性行为和高温。我们将研究使用表面可调纳米颗粒跨越生物屏障的潜力。

There has been much speculation about the potential use of nanoparticles in biomedicine. One of the formidable challenges hindering the in vivo biomedical use of nanoparticles is to cross biological barriers. The aqueous biological milieu requires nanoparticles having a highly hydrophilic surface. In contrast, all biological barriers such as brain, lung and skin, embody hydrophobic-hydrophilic interfaces, so a hydrophobic surface should favor nanoparticles crossing these barriers. To fulfill these two conflicting demands for nanoparticles crossing biological barriers, the present project is devoted to fabrication of surface tunable nanoparticles, whose surface functionality such as charge nature and density, wettability, capability of conjugating with biomolecules can be tuned by environmental stimuli. This innovative surface behavior will rely on capping nanoparticles with stimuli-responsive polymer brushes, obtained via either grafting-to and grafting-from strategies. The correlation of the surface properties of nanoparticles and surface response to the environmental stimuli with the local structures of the polymer capping will be systematically studied. Based on the stimuli-tunable surface properties of nanoparticles, the response of the particle physicochemical properties, such as magnetic behavior and hyperthermia derived thereof will be studied In close collaboration with the partners we will study the potential of use of surface tunable nanoparticles to cross biological barriers.