New chemistry of making lipid nanostructures

纳米技术是过去十年中一些最具创新性的科学背后的推动力。无机纳米粒子和聚合物纳米粒子的最新进展产生了一系列新的纳米级性能，为健康、能源、环境领域的新兴颠覆性技术提供了大量新的工具和构件。与这些进展相比，脂类纳米颗粒的开发速度要慢得多，这是因为可用于设计单分散脂类纳米颗粒的化学策略有限，缺乏脂类纳米颗粒结构和功能的多样性，以及狭隘的脂类纳米颗粒用途(主要用作药物输送载体)。为了解决这一问题，我们建议开发三类新型的脂质纳米结构。第一种是模拟新生高密度脂蛋白的球形和单层多肽-磷脂支架，有望作为药物纳米载体。二是利用新发现的脂肽创造非常规形状的脂质纳米粒(管、笼等)，这将加深我们对纳米生物界面的理解。第三是双层光导脂质纳米颗粒的开发，这是一种柔软的、不含金属的纳米换能器，可能会产生前所未有的光热和光声试剂。总体而言，这一令人兴奋的项目将开发脂类纳米颗粒的新化学、结构和功能，并极大地扩大脂类纳米颗粒的用途，从传统的递送系统到新型功能材料。

Nanotechnology is a driving force behind some of the most innovative science in the last decade. Recent advances in inorganic nanoparticles and polymeric nanoparticles have produced a wide spectrum of new nanoscale properties that lead to a large number of new tools and building blocks for the emerging disruptive technologies in health, energy, environmental fields. Comparing to such advance, the field of lipid nanoparticle development is operated at a much slower pace because of the limited chemical strategies available to engineer mono-dispersed lipid nanoparticles, the lack of diversity of lipid nanostructures and functions, and the narrow purview lipid nanoparticle utilities (mostly serving as drug delivery vehicles). To address this, we propose to develop three classes of novel lipid nanostructures. The first is the spherical and monolayered peptide-phospholipid scaffolds to mimic nascent high-density lipoproteins (HDL), which could serve as promising drug nanocarriers. The second is the use of newly discovered lipopeptides to create unconventional shaped lipid nanoparticles (tube, cage, etc.), this will further our understanding the 'nano-bio interface'. The third is the development of bilayered phototranductive lipid nanoparticles, which are soft and metal free nanoscale transducers that could lead to unprecedented photothermal and photoacoustic agents. Overall, this exciting project will develop new chemistry, structure and function of lipid nanoparticles and greatly expanded the utility of lipid nanoparticles from conventional delivery systems to novel functional materials.