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驱动力。无机纳米粒子和聚合物纳米粒子的最新进展产生了广泛的新纳米级特性，为健康，能源，环境领域的新兴颠覆性技术带来了大量新工具和构建模块。与这样的进展相比，脂质纳米颗粒开发领域的操作速度要慢得多，因为可用于工程化单分散脂质纳米颗粒的有限的化学策略，缺乏脂质纳米结构和功能的多样性，以及范围狭窄的脂质纳米颗粒用途（主要用作药物递送载体）。为了解决这个问题，我们建议开发三类新型脂质纳米结构。第一种是球形和单层肽磷脂支架，以模拟新生高密度脂蛋白（HDL），这可能是有前途的药物纳米载体。第二种是使用新发现的脂肽来产生非常规形状的脂质纳米颗粒（管、笼等），这将进一步加深我们对“纳米生物界面”的理解。第三是双层光传导脂质纳米颗粒的发展，这是软的和无金属的纳米级换能器，可能导致前所未有的光热和光声剂。总体而言，这个令人兴奋的项目将开发新的化学，结构和功能的脂质纳米颗粒，并大大扩展了脂质纳米颗粒的效用从传统的输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.