Biophysical characterisation of self-assembling nanoparticles

该研究项目的重点是工程脂质纳米盘（Lipodisqs），以提供治疗肽和寡核苷酸的细胞和细胞内的目标，是EPSRC优先是在医疗保健组合。脂质纳米盘已经在体外和体内测定中显示出作为药物携带分子的初步潜力，因为它们能够增加更多亲脂性（并且因此疏水性）药物分子的溶解度。它们作为可溶性脂质膜模拟物的能力不仅可用于治疗药物的载药特性，而且可用于研究膜蛋白在其天然构象和环境中的生物物理和结构特征。

The research project focuses on engineering lipid nanodiscs (Lipodisqs) to deliver therapeutic peptides and oligonucleotides to cellular and intracellular targets, and is an EPSRC Priority Are in the Healthcare portfolio. Lipid nanodiscs have shown preliminary potential as drug carrying molecules in both in vitro and in vivo assays, as they are able to increase solubility of more lipophilic (and therefore hydrophobic) drug molecules. Their ability to act as a soluble lipid membrane mimic is useful for not only the drug carrying properties for therapeutics, but also could be used to study the biophysical and structural characteristics of membrane proteins in their native conformation and environment.