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

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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.