TEAM & PROJECTS

Cellular hitchhiking for the targeted delivery of steroids to the lungs in a bronchopulmonary dysplasia rabbit model

Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) is a severe lung development disease affecting premature infants, which poses a significant medical and financial burden during the entire lifetime of the patient. Current treatment strategies fail to fully tackle the disease and can cause severe neurodevelopmental side effects. Therefore, my research focusses on advancing current BPD therapies by developing a new drug delivery strategy based on the combination of nanomedicine and cell based drug delivery systems. I will couple drug-loaded nanomaterials to circulatory cells and evaluate the behavior and treatment efficiencies of these drug complexes in a BPD rabbit model. This unique approach has the potential to not only improve drug targeted delivery to preterm lungs but also greatly reduce unwanted side effects.

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Promotor: Prof. Jaan Toelen

Co-promotor: Dr. Bella Manshian