Biotecnología aplicada al diseño de nanotransportadores dirigidos al sistema nervioso

Abstract

Nanomedicine has become one of the most promising disciplines for the development of new systems that will allow us to face the great clinical challenges. Unfortunately, nowadays, most of the nanomaterials are designed for therapeutic applications and do not meet the original expectations. One of the reasons for the failure of these nanosystems is their low specificity and targeting. This is because of their intrinsic properties, fundamentally their size and their great surface reactivity. This can trigger multiple bio-synthetic interactions with the in vivo environment, where the circulating biomolecules surround them, hiding their targeting ligands and providing a biological identity that affect their targeting. Theses complicate the study and translation of the results from the bench-to-bedside. Therefore, providing nanomaterials with a unique and controlled biological functionality is essential to predict their behaviour and their in vivo destination. This thesis main goal is to apply biotechnology to nanomaterials to create bioactive coatings for these nanomaterials that, mimicking nature, can be targeted specifically to cells or tissues. To achieve this goal, we have designed proteins with a ligand domain fused to an interaction domain with the surface of the nanomaterial. These chimera proteins conjugate stable, efficiently and in a surface-oriented manner to the nanomaterials. Finally, following the proposed model, we have mimicked the virus´s structure to design pseudo nano-capsules with oriented ligand protein.