Design and development of an advanced drug delivery modality combining nanocarriers and human dental stem cells for the treatment of ischemic stroke. (R-11534)

Ischemic stroke is one of the most common causes of death worldwide, and patients that survive are often left with a residual disability. The currently available therapies suffer from a lot of limitations and do not result in a full recovery. Therefore, this project focuses on the development of an innovative drug delivery system for the treatment of ischemic stroke, using pH-responsive nanocarriers and human dental pulp-derived stem cells (hDPSCs). The hDPSCs have the potential to migrate towards ischemic regions and will, therefore, be used as a delivery vehicle for the nanocarriers. They also secrete a wide range of soluble growth factors that will help in the protection and regeneration of neural tissue, and in the formation of new blood vessels. The nanocarriers will be used to stimulate the secretion of growth factors from the hDPSCs, thereby aiding in the recovery of damaged tissue. Moreover, they allow a more efficient stem cell differentiation by controlling the bioavailability of soluble growth factors. The first step in this project is the synthesis and characterization of pH-responsive nanocarriers encapsulating soluble growth factors. As a next step, the nanocarriers will be attached to the surface of hDPSCs using ligand-receptor interactions or internalized within the hDPSCs via endocytosis or electroporation. Finally, the potential of this system to aid in neovascularization, neuroprotection and neuroregeneration will be tested.

Keywords:drug delivery, Human Dental Stem Cells, Responsive Nanocarriers, regeneration

Disciplines:Chemistry of clusters, colloids and nanomaterials, Nanobiotechnology, Biomaterials