About the project

Lipid-based nanoparticles (NPs), such as liposomes, lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), and solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN), are versatile drug and gene delivery carriers which can be functionalised in a variety of ways. The structure of lipid-based carriers has been investigated extensively in physiological pH and different salt concentrations using a range of techniques including SANS. The functionality of these carriers is assessed via in vitro and in vivo testing.

However, often these studies do not draw the same conclusions, since the environment where the lipid carrier is immersed is extremely different between in vitro and in vivo conditions. The experimental conditions are different not only in terms of the molecular composition of the media but also due to the responsiveness of the lipid-based NP to flow rate and shear. For example, the biological identity of NPs upon incubation with human blood plasma has been increasingly studied in the last decade. The composition of the biomolecular corona and its effect on the functionality of the nanocarrier is now better understood. However, there is little known about the structural effects resulting from the shear stress upon IV administration. Both simulations and experiments show how the NP’s distribution is affected by the flow rate and the presence of red blood cells, but to our knowledge, there are no studies on the effect of shear stress on the structural and compositional arrangement of Lipid-based NP.

In this project, we aim to characterise the LNP structure under shear stress comparable to blood flow both with and without the payload.