Research lines

The lines of research of our group in the field of dendrimers try to use these materials as a tool to confer directionality to some of the properties and applications of dendrimers in Biomedicine and Advanced Materials. This provides an additional property that may be essential in those cases in which anisotropy and self-organization are fundamentals.

In the field of Biomedicine our group has focused on the synthesis of three types of fundamental structures:

• Dendrimers self-organizing into solid nano-structures for applications as drugs, transporters of drugs and in gene transfection.

• Liposomes and vesicles based on liquid crystal dendrimers that respond to external stimuli for the controlled release of drugs.

• Photochromic liquid crystal dendrimers for applications as biosensors.

The main objectives are:

• Objective 1: Design and synthesize new biocompatible dendrimers for gene transfection (DNA and SiRNA).

• Objective 2: To study the activity of nanoaggregates formed with three types of dendrimeric platforms, pseudodendrimers, Janus type dendrimers and linear dendritic structures, as smart transporters for the controlled release of active drugs against malaria, tuberculosis and hepatitis C.

• Objetivo 3: To advance in the knowledge of the structure-activity relationship in these materials through the quantitative study of the interaction between drugs and dendrimers using the Isothermal Calorimetry (ITC) technique.

Researchers

José Luis Serrano                               Mercedes Marcos                 
Pilar Romero                                      Joaquín Barberá
Teresa Sierra                                     Silvia Hernández
María San Anselmo                            Violeta Morcuende

Fundings (last 5 years selection)

1-         Hierarchical Self Assembly of Polymeric Soft Systems. "SASSYPOL". 7th Framework Programme, CEE, Ref-607602 (01-09-2013/ 31-08-2017)

2-         Microstructured functional polymers with responsive behavior for optical, biomedical and green technologies. CSIC, i-link 2011 (I-LINK0394) (01-01-2012/31-12-2013) ICMA (CSIC-Universidad de Zaragoza)-Universidad de Cambridge (Reino Unido), Universidad Tecnológica de Eindhoven (Países Bajos) y Universidad Queen Mary de Londres (Reino Unido).

3-         Dendrímeros funcionales: Nuevas herramientas para la obtención de materiales avanzados y aplicaciones biomédicas. (Dendrimab) MINECO (CTQ2012-35692) (01-01-2013/31-12-2015)

4-         Síntesis y aplicaciones de polímeros y copolímeros bloque supramoleculares inteligentes con propiedades de respuesta a estímulos. MINECO (MAT2014-55205-P)

(01-01-2015/31-12-2017)

5-         Nuevas plataformas multifuncionales basadas en estructuras dendriméricas auto-organizables para aplicaciones en Biomedicina y Materiales avanzados. (Newdreamers) MINECO (CTQ2015- 70174‐P) (01-01-2016    /31-12-2018)

Publications (last selection 5 years)

1.-         J. Movellan, P. Urbán, E. Moles, J. M. de la Fuente, T. Sierra, J. L. Serrano and X. Fernàndez-Busquets. Amphiphilic dendritic derivatives as nanocarriers for the targeted delivery of antimalarial drugs. Biomaterials, 35, 7940-7950, (2014).

2.-         J. Movellan, R. González-Pastor, P. Martín Duque, T. Sierra, J. M. de la Fuente, J.L. Serrano. New Ionic bis-MPA and PAMAM dendrimers: A study of their biocompatibility and DNA-complexation. Macromol. Bioscience, 5, 657–667, (2015).

3.-         A. Lancelot, R. González-Pastor, A. Concellón, T. Sierra, P. Martín-Duque, J. L. Serrano. DNA transfection to mesenchymal stem cells using a novel type of pseudodendrimer based on bis-MPA. Bioconjugate Chem., 28, 1135-1150 (2017) .          

4.-         A. Lancelot, R. González-Pastor, A. Concellón, T. Sierra, P. Martín-Duque, J. L. Serrano. DNA transfection to mesenchymal stem cells using a novel type of pseudodendrimer based on bis-MPA. Bioconjugate Chem., 28, 1135-1150 (2017).          

5.-          A. Lancelot,  R. González-Pastor,  R. Clavería-Gimeno, P. Romero, O. Abian, P. Martín-Duque, J.L. Serrano, T, Sierra. Cationic poly(ester amide) dendrimers: alluring materials for biomedical applications. J. Mater. Chem. B, 2018, 6, 3956-3968.

International Collaborations