Professor Gleb Sukhorukov’s Lecture at ZIOC
On February 1st, Prof. Gleb Sukhorukov from the School of Engineering and Materials Science, Queen Mary, University of London, gave a lecture “Remote Controlled Delivery Nanosystems” at ZIOC.
Prof. Sukhorukov detailed on the preparation of multilayer microcapsules based on polyelectrolytes and nanocomposites and spoke about their potential applications for delivery of biologically active substances to selected targets in the human body under the impact of various physical factors such as the magnetic field.
The assembly of microcapsules is accomplished on the surface of a solid support, e.g. calcium carbonate or latex nanospheres. The support is then destroyed to release hollow capsules with the sought active components.
Over the past years, biologists and medics have attached special attention to applications of inorganic/organic hybrid materials.
Inorganic particles inserted into polymeric shells of microcapsules secure both their targeted delivery and permeability control. Live cells actively capture such microcapsules and accumulate them in cytoplasm. The reported results show that the targeted destruction of individual capsules let achieve a point release of active substances.
According to Prof. Sukhorukov, the key benefit of the designed delivery systems is their multicomponent nature, i.e. simultaneous delivery of a few different substances. Each of them exhibits a certain activity which is important for the desired reaction.
The topic aroused a high interest of the audience and involved a vigorous discussion.
The lecture was initiated by the Prof. V.P. Ananikov's Laboratoty under a new educational project of ZIOC RAS.