Nano-particle motion/transport in biological liquids

纳米粒子（NPs）和基于纳米材料的产品由于其独特的特性而引起了科学界越来越大的兴趣，这使得它们可以在不同的领域执行广泛的任务。医学是这些材料最有前途的应用领域之一，大量研究将NPs用于医学成像、疾病诊断、药物传递、癌症治疗、基因治疗等。然而，关于NPs在生物流体中分散时的动力学知识缺乏。要充分了解NPs对健康的潜在毒性影响，有必要清楚地了解NPs如何与周围环境相互作用。在本研究中，将对浸泡在一系列生物介质中的不同大小和配方的NPs的动力学进行调查，以提出具有相似行为的NPs的分组和分类，并了解它们是否以及如何与周围的生物组分相互作用。分析将使用一种新的实时单跟踪方法，利用光学显微镜中的腐蚀性现象进行。加强对生物介质中NPs行为的理解，将为在医学中更加有意识和安全地使用NPs铺平道路。

Nanoparticles (NPs) and nanomaterial-based products are attracting an ever-growing interest in the scientific community thanks to their unique properties which allow their usage in different fields to perform a wide range of tasks. Medicine is one of the most promising fields of application for these materials, and an extensive number of researches use NPs for medical imaging, disease diagnoses, drug delivery, cancer treatment, gene therapy and so on. Nevertheless, there is a lack of knowledge about the dynamics of NPs when dispersed in biological fluids. A clear comprehension of how NPs interact with the surrounding environment is necessary to fully understand their potential toxic health effects. In this study, an investigation on the dynamics of NPs with different size and formulation immersed in a range of biological media will be performed, in order to propose a grouping and categorisation of NPs with similar behaviour and to understand whether and how they interact with the surrounding biological components. Analysis will be conducted using a novel real-time single tracking approach exploiting the caustic phenomena in optical microscopy. Enhanced understanding of NPs behaviour in biological media, will pave the way to a much conscious and safe usage in medicine.