September 2018

24 sep 2018 - 11:10 CET

Sandra Montalvo Quirós successfully defended her PhD thesis entitled "Design, Synthesis and Evaluation of New Nanosystems for Applications in Biomedicine".

This doctoral thesis has been focused on the development of nanosystems suitable against pathologies such as tuberculosis and cancer. A multidisciplinary approach has been carried out, from the synthesis and characterization of the designed nanosystems to their in vitro evaluation through bioanalytical strategies such as quantitative proteomics.

The obtained nanosystems combine mesoporous silica nanoparticles with proteins and/or metal nanoparticles, finally obtaining organic-inorganic hybrid nanomaterials.

In the case of cancer, the attached proteins have the ability to target tumour cells to selectively transport and deliver silver nanoparticles as therapy.

In the case of tuberculosis, the proteins possess immunomodulatory capacity, which gives the nanosystem the possibility of acting as a preventive vaccine. Nanosystems that incorporate silver or silver bromide nanoparticles with bactericidal capacity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis are also proposed.