Beta user program for Nanoparticle analyser

在过去的三十年里，纳米颗粒在医疗保健、能源生产、制造业和农业等许多技术部门的应用中得到了广泛的采用和产业化。在制药领域，这一进展的核心是将剧毒抗癌药物或遗传物质填充本来是惰性颗粒材料的能力，和/或对表面进行功能化处理，以掩盖它们的存在，使其免受人类免疫反应的影响，并更好地针对特定器官、肿瘤或细胞成分释放“有效载荷”。这些发展导致了先进疗法领域的一系列科学突破，利用纳米载体将药物输送到人体需要的地方，并减少了对健康器官和组织的毒性。然而，制造这种“先进疗法”是具有挑战性的，因为它需要精细的工具来仔细检查比人类头发宽度小1000倍的纳米颗粒。牛津HighQ开发了一种新技术，能够通过纳米颗粒的光学性质，更具体地说是它们的折射率来表征其组成。人们可以使用这个参数来逐个颗粒地测量纳米颗粒载体内/上负载的治疗分子的量。这项技术在制造过程中联动制造的占地面积、易用性和潜力使其对制药行业特别有吸引力。该项目将启动一项雄心勃勃的12个月阿尔法和贝塔用户计划，并提供机会开发和测试新颖的升级样品处理能力，以满足客户需求。与纳米医学领域的专家合作，我们将重点展示我们独特的能力在各种分析物和样品矩阵中的应用，使我们能够释放牛津HighQ技术的真正潜力。

The last three decades have seen the widespread adoption and industrialisation of nanoparticles serving applications in many technology sectors, including healthcare, energy production, manufacturing industry and agriculture. In the pharmaceutical sector, at the heart of this progress is the ability to fill otherwise inert particle materials with highly toxic anti-cancer drugs or genetic materials and/or functionalise the surface to both mask their presence from the human immune response and to better target the release of the "payload" at a particular organ, tumour or cellular component. These developments have led to a series of scientific breakthroughs in the field of advanced therapeutics by using nanocarriers to deliver drugs where it is needed in the body and reducing toxicity to healthy organ and tissues.However, manufacturing of such "advanced therapies" is challenging as it requires fine tools to scrutinise nanoparticles 1000 times smaller than the width of a human hair. Oxford HighQ has developed a new technique providing the ability to characterise the composition of nanoparticles through their optical properties, more specifically their refractive indices. One could use this parameter to measure on a particle-by-particle basis the amount of therapeutic molecules loaded within/on a nanoparticle carrier. The limited footprint, ease-of-use and potential for this technique to be built in-line within a manufacturing process makes it particularly attractive to the pharmaceutical industry.This project will see the launch of an ambitious 12-month alpha- and beta-users programme, as well as providing the opportunity to develop and test novel upgraded sample-handling capabilities to meet customer demand. Working with experts in the nanomedicines field, we will focus on demonstrating the application of our unique capabilities against a wide variety of analytes and sample matrices, allowing us to unlock the true potential of Oxford HighQ's technology.