Beta user program for Nanoparticle analyser

在过去的三十年里，纳米粒子被广泛采用并实现了工业化，在许多技术领域都有应用，包括医疗保健、能源生产、制造业和农业。在制药领域，这一进展的核心是能够用高毒性抗癌药物或遗传物质填充原本惰性的颗粒材料和/或使表面功能化，以掩盖它们在人体免疫反应中的存在，并更好地靶向释放特定器官、肿瘤或细胞成分的“有效载荷”。这些发展导致了先进治疗领域的一系列科学突破，通过使用纳米载体将药物输送到体内需要的地方，并减少对健康器官和组织的毒性。然而，制造这种“先进疗法”具有挑战性，因为它需要精细的工具来仔细检查比人类头发宽度小1000倍的纳米颗粒。牛津大学HighQ开发了一项新技术，通过纳米粒子的光学特性，更具体地说是它们的折射率，来表征纳米粒子的组成。人们可以用这个参数来测量纳米颗粒载体内/上的治疗分子的颗粒量。该技术占地面积有限，易于使用，并且有可能在制造过程中进行在线构建，因此对制药行业特别有吸引力。该项目将启动一项雄心勃勃的为期12个月的alpha和beta用户计划，并提供开发和测试新型升级样品处理能力的机会，以满足客户需求。与纳米医学领域的专家合作，我们将专注于展示我们对各种分析物和样品矩阵的独特能力的应用，使我们能够释放牛津HighQ技术的真正潜力。

The last three decades have seen the widespread adoption and industrialisation of nanoparticles serving applications in many technology sectors, including healthcare, energy production, manufacturing industry and agriculture. In the pharmaceutical sector, at the heart of this progress is the ability to fill otherwise inert particle materials with highly toxic anti-cancer drugs or genetic materials and/or functionalise the surface to both mask their presence from the human immune response and to better target the release of the "payload" at a particular organ, tumour or cellular component. These developments have led to a series of scientific breakthroughs in the field of advanced therapeutics by using nanocarriers to deliver drugs where it is needed in the body and reducing toxicity to healthy organ and tissues.However, manufacturing of such "advanced therapies" is challenging as it requires fine tools to scrutinise nanoparticles 1000 times smaller than the width of a human hair. Oxford HighQ has developed a new technique providing the ability to characterise the composition of nanoparticles through their optical properties, more specifically their refractive indices. One could use this parameter to measure on a particle-by-particle basis the amount of therapeutic molecules loaded within/on a nanoparticle carrier. The limited footprint, ease-of-use and potential for this technique to be built in-line within a manufacturing process makes it particularly attractive to the pharmaceutical industry.This project will see the launch of an ambitious 12-month alpha- and beta-users programme, as well as providing the opportunity to develop and test novel upgraded sample-handling capabilities to meet customer demand. Working with experts in the nanomedicines field, we will focus on demonstrating the application of our unique capabilities against a wide variety of analytes and sample matrices, allowing us to unlock the true potential of Oxford HighQ's technology.