Biomaterials Seminar Glasgow 2017
30th May 2017
Dr. Ciro Chiappini
Kings College, London
Summary:
Ciro started off introducing porous silicon as an interesting biomaterial to create needle structures in. This material is so highly porous that any proteins or peptides within a fluid have a chance to interact with the surface and can bind to it (depending on their properties). Therefore porous silicon is useful to deliver molecules to an into cells. In contact with tall nano-needle shaped silicon cells 'hug' these very closely - almost engulfing them - but not quite being able to (signs of frustrated phago- & micropinocytosis = clathrin & calveolin). The needles are probably not able to penetrate the cell membrane and be inside in direct contact with the cytoplasm (FIB-SEM data). The membrane around the needles may be 'stretched' and 'bent' making the gap between the needle and the membrane into a privileged space, where material will exchange easily with the cytoplasm and vice versa.That molecules exchange both ways means that the needles can be used as a platform technology not only as a means to deliver drugs, RNA and DNA inside cells e.g. to drive and direct differentiation of fibroblasts into heart muscle, but also as a means to directly sense what goes on inside these cell. There is also the possibility to indirectly sense what goes on inside cells by creating a "molecular copy" of material adsorbed onto/into the needles to be looked at by DESI imaging or similar.
Papers mentioned in the talk:
Chiappini, E. DeRosa, J.O. Martinez, X. Liu, J. Steele, M. Stevens, E. Tasciotti, Biodegradable silicon nanoneedles delivering nucleic acids intracellularly induce localized in vivo neovascularization, Nature Materials 14, 532-539 (2015).[Cover Article].C. Chiappini*, P. Campagnolo, C. Almeida, N. Abassi-Ghadi, L. Chow, G. Hanna, M. Stevens*, Mapping Local Cytosolic Enzymatic Activity in Human Esophageal Mucosa with Porous Silicon Nanoneedles, Advanced Materials 27, 5147- 5152 (2015).
Chiappini, E. DeRosa, J.O. Martinez, E. Tasciotti, M. Stevens. Biodegradable nanoneedles for localized delivery of nanoparticles in vivo: exploring the biointerface, ACS Nano 9, 5500-5509 (2015).
More about Ciro: http://chiappinilab.com
Ciro with his Sketchnote
b&w version of the doodle:
