Theoretical model to describe formation and stability of liposome-drug complexes

People involved

Rachel Downing (former PhD fellow sponsored by the PRC)

Faruk Hossain

Abstract

Despite the generally recognized relevance of applying theoretical concepts to the design of lipid-based drug carrier systems, there is little ongoing research to develop new and further refine existing concepts. We therefore propose to develop a variety of theoretical models for the interaction between drug molecules and liposomes.1)2) Four specific projects will be addressed: (i) the influence of membrane-intercalating drug molecules on the stability of liposomes, (ii) the conformation of vesicles containing polyethylene glycol (PEG)-lipids studied using theory and computer simulations, (iii) the impact of drug molecules on the dynamics of vesicle formation, and (iv) the kinetics of drug release from liposomes in spatially inhomogeneous systems.

We aim to extract and understand general physical mechanisms that relate to the formation and stability of drug-hosting liposomes.3)4)5) Hence, the result of this research will be the identification of mechanistic insights and the characterization of design principles for drug-containing liposomes. Our strategic goal is to re-emphasize the importance of theoretical research in the field of phospholipid vesicles and establish a culture of making models transparent and available to researchers.

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