Biophysical characterisation of self-assembling nanoparticles

该研究项目专注于工程脂质纳米盘（Lipodisqs），将治疗性肽和寡核苷酸输送到细胞和细胞内目标，是EPSRC在医疗保健组合中的优先项目。脂质纳米盘在体外和体内实验中已经显示出作为药物携带分子的初步潜力，因为它们能够增加亲脂性（因此疏水）药物分子的溶解度。它们作为可溶性脂质膜模拟物的能力不仅可以用于治疗药物的携带特性，而且可以用于研究膜蛋白在其天然构象和环境下的生物物理和结构特性。

The research project focuses on engineering lipid nanodiscs (Lipodisqs) to deliver therapeutic peptides and oligonucleotides to cellular and intracellular targets, and is an EPSRC Priority Are in the Healthcare portfolio. Lipid nanodiscs have shown preliminary potential as drug carrying molecules in both in vitro and in vivo assays, as they are able to increase solubility of more lipophilic (and therefore hydrophobic) drug molecules. Their ability to act as a soluble lipid membrane mimic is useful for not only the drug carrying properties for therapeutics, but also could be used to study the biophysical and structural characteristics of membrane proteins in their native conformation and environment.