Towards universal cargo carriers for transport across the Blood-Brain-Barrier

该NSERC催化剂赠款旨在支持温莎大学John Trant博士的研究小组与印度高知圣心学院富兰克林约翰博士的团队之间的合作。两人都是合成糖化学家，有着不同的关注点，但也都在不同的领域工作。这包括制造用于溶解不溶于水的有机分子（包括药物）的纳米颗粒，并研究使这些纳米颗粒仅进入特定类型细胞的方法。两人也一直在考虑如何帮助这些颗粒携带它们的货物穿过血脑屏障。这是一层细胞，可以防止血液中的化合物和细胞污染我们的大脑。Trant实验室一直专注于设计特殊的载体系统，以便胶囊在体内保持完整，直到需要释放它们的货物，而John实验室一直专注于如何使用红外线对这些颗粒进行成像，这不仅允许在活组织中成像，而且避免了使用更多标准荧光成像时出现的一些噪音。两人一直在试图确定一种机制来开始他们的合作，宣布这项赠款计划，重点是启动有前途的国际研究安排，是开始这个项目的最佳方式。这些资金将支持加拿大的学生，他们将与印度的团队密切合作，以推进两个小组的研究目标，并确保我们找到更多的合作基础。

This NSERC catalyst grant aims to support the initiation of a collaboration between Dr. John Trant's research group at the University of Windsor, and Dr. Franklin John's team at Sacred Heart College in Kochi, India. Both are synthetic sugar chemists, with different focuses, but both also work in a variety of different fields. This includes making nanoparticles for solvating organic molecules not soluble in water, including drugs, and working on ways so that these nanoparticles only enter specific types of cells. Both have also been considering how to assist these particles in carrying their cargo across the blood brain barrier. This is a lining of cells that prevents compounds and cells in our blood from contaminating our brain. The Trant lab has been focusing on designing special carrier systems so that the capsules stay intact in the body until they are needed to release their cargo, while the John lab has been focused on how to image these particles using infrared which not only allows for imaging in living tissue, but avoids some of the noise that arises when more standard fluorescent imaging is used. The two have been attempting to determine a mechanism to begin their collaboration, and the announcement of this grant program, focused on initiating promising international research arrangements, is the best way to start working on this project. These funds will support students in Canada who will work closely with the team in India to advance the research goals of both groups, and it will also ensure that we find additional bases for collaboration.