Investigadores: Luis Negrón (PI) y Dalvin Méndez (Colaborador)
Departamento: Química
Descripción: The goal of this proposal is to develop an efficient method to prepare nanoparticles based on the use of small molecule lipid dendrimers which acts as monomeric subunits with self-assembly properties under a specific stimulus such as temperature and pH. Nanoparticles offer advantages in medicine, such as tunability to treat specific tissues, an increase of drug solubility, a variety of cargo releasing mechanisms, and stability in the circulation. Nevertheless, applications of current polymeric nanoparticles showed limitations in medicine due to their preparation methods and further surface post-modifications which leads to the production of toxic impurities that affects bioavailability and large-scale production in the pharmaceutical industry. A convenient alternative to develop more efficient nanoparticles, and overcome the mentioned obstacles, is by using small molecules as monomeric subunits to understand the self-assembly properties and non-covalent interactions that induce their formation under a specific stimulus like temperature or pH.