Biomaterials & Drug Delivery (BIDD)
Gene, tissue engineering and cell therapies are considered by EU directives as the current line of advanced therapy medicinal products. Our research focuses on providing new functional biomaterial and nanomedicine platforms to support these new therapies. Concretely, our platforms are engineered to overcome important bottlenecks on targeting, kinetics, efficacy and bioactivity of these therapeutics, which limit their clinical translation. Current platforms from the BIDD group include a range of nanocarriers for gene and protein delivery, microspheres for sustained protein release, and gene activated matrices.
Research Lines
- Gene nanomedicines based on stimuli-sensitive polyphozphazenes.
- Nanomedicines based on natural and biosynthetic proteins
- Transcription activated matrices
Members
Selected publications
Structure-Optimized Interpolymer Polyphosphazene Complexes for Effective Gene Delivery against Glioblastoma
Co-delivery of RNAi and chemokine by polyarginine nanocapsules enables the modulation of myeloid-derived suppressor cells
mRNA-activated matrices encoding transcription factors as primers of cell differentiation in tissue engineering
Extracellular matrix mechanics regulate transfection and SOX9-directed differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells.
Selected Results
The BiDD research group has made instrumental in developing advanced drug delivery systems and applications of nanotechnology in medicine. Over the past years, their focus has been on creating novel therapeutic systems that can modify the cellular environment in pathologies such as cancer.
Key Research Areas and Achievements:
- Nanocapsules for Enhanced Anticancer Therapies: The group developed specialized nanocapsules targeting lymphatic nodes. This technology significantly improves the delivery and efficacy of anticancer drugs.
- Advanced Treatment Approaches for Glioblastoma: Garcia-Fuentes and his team have created implantable systems loaded with bone morphogenetic proteins. These systems are designed to induce differentiation in glioblastoma initiating cells, offering a new approach to treating this aggressive form of brain cancer.
- Gene Delivery Systems: The team has innovated in the field of gene therapy by developing click-able polyphosphazenes. This advancement has substantially improved the efficiency of gene delivery systems. Novel viromimetic particles are under development.
- Immunotherapy Technologies: A significant achievement includes designing nanocapsules for the dual delivery of chemokines and RNA. This approach targets immunosuppression in cancer therapy, opening new avenues in immunotherapy.
- Tissue Engineering and Repair: They have pioneered mRNA activated matrices for tissue engineering. These matrices are activated with messenger RNA encoding transcription factors, a novel approach in tissue repair and regeneration.
Projects
National project(s)
Alliances
