26 documents found, page 1 of 3
The Effect of Curcumin-Loaded Glucan Nanoparticles on Immune Cells: Size as a C...
Colaço, Mariana; Roquito, Tiago; Costa, João Panão da; Cruz, M. Teresa; Borges, OlgaCurcumin is known for its multiple health benefits, largely due to its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. It has been extensively studied as a therapeutic agent, however, it does not have good clinical efficacy due to its poor water solubility and bioavailability. Despite accepting the encapsulation of this compound in polymeric particles as one of the most promising strategies to increase its therap...
Chitosan Nanoparticles: Shedding Light on Immunotoxicity and Hemocompatibility
Jesus, Sandra; Marques, Ana Patrícia; Duarte, Alana; Soares, Edna; Costa, João Panão da; Colaço, Mariana; Schmutz, Mélanie; Som, ClaudiaNanoparticles (NPs) assumed an important role in the area of drug delivery. Despite the number of studies including NPs are growing over the last years, their side effects on the immune system are often ignored or omitted. One of the most studied polymers in the nano based drug delivery system field is chitosan (Chit). In the scientific literature, although the physicochemical properties [molecular weight (MW) ...
How the Lack of Chitosan Characterization Precludes Implementation of the Safe-...
Marques, Cíntia; Som, Claudia; Schmutz, Mélanie; Borges, Olga; Borchard, GerritEfficacy and safety of nanomedicines based on polymeric (bio)materials will benefit from a rational implementation of a Safe-by-Design (SbD) approach throughout their development. In order to achieve this goal, however, a standardization of preparation and characterization methods and their accurate reporting is needed. Focusing on the example of chitosan, a biopolymer derived from chitin and frequently used in...
Editorial: Polymeric Nano-Biomaterials for Medical Applications: Advancements i...
Borchard, Gerrit; Som, Claudia; Zinn, Manfred; Ostafe, Vasile; Borges, Olga; Perale, Giuseppe; Wick, PeterHorizon 2020 framework program of the European Union, ProSafe Joint Transnational Call 2016, and from the CTI (1.1.2018 Innosuisse) under grant agreement number 19267.1 PFNM-NM.
Unravelling the Immunotoxicity of Polycaprolactone Nanoparticles-Effects of Pol...
Jesus, Sandra; Bernardi, Natalia; da Silva, Jessica; Colaco, Mariana; Costa, Joao Panao; Fonte, Pedro; Borges, OlgaPoly-epsilon-caprolactone (PCL) is a biodegradable polyester that has FDA and CE approval as a medical device. Nonetheless, the lack of toxicity exhibited by the polymer cannot be extrapolated to its nanomaterial conformation. Despite PCL-based NPs being widely studied in the biomedical field for their advantages as controlled drug delivery systems, little data describe PCL NPs' toxicity, particularly immunotox...
Chimeric Antigenic Receptor (CAR) T Cells: A New Immunotherapeutic Strategy
Cruz, Maria Teresa; Mateus, Daniela Marques; Borges, OlgaThe development of T cells genetically modified to express a quimeric antigen receptor (CAR) at the surface, has been growing up in last few decades, envolving until now more than three hundred clinical trials in oncology. Expression of CAR allows to direct endogenous T cell anti-tumor activity to a given antigen, resulting in the destruction of a specific target. After promising results in several clinical tri...
Hazard Assessment of Polymeric Nanobiomaterials for Drug Delivery: What Can We ...
Jesus, Sandra; Schmutz, Mélanie; Som, Claudia; Borchard, Gerrit; Wick, Peter; Borges, OlgaThe physicochemical properties of nanobiomaterials, such as their small size and high surface area ratio, make them attractive, novel drug-carriers, with increased cellular interaction and increased permeation through several biological barriers. However, these same properties hinder any extrapolation of knowledge from the toxicity of their raw material. Though, as suggested by the Safe-by-Design (SbD) concept,...
Poly(D,L-Lactic Acid) Nanoparticle Size Reduction Increases Its Immunotoxicity
Silva, Jéssica da; Jesus, Sandra; Bernardi, Natália; Colaço, Mariana; Borges, OlgaPolylactic acid (PLA), a biodegradable and biocompatible polymer produced from renewable resources, has been widely used as a nanoparticulate platform for antigen and drug delivery. Despite generally regarded as safe, its immunotoxicological profile, when used as a polymeric nanoparticle (NP), is not well-documented. Thus, this study intends to address this gap, by evaluating the toxicity of two different sized...
Activity and Cell-Death Pathway in Leishmania infantum Induced by Sugiol: Vecto...
Scariot, Débora Botura; Volpato, Hélito; Fernandes, Nilma de Souza; Soares, Edna Filipa Pais; Ueda-Nakamura, Tânia; Dias-Filho, Benedito PradoVisceral leishmaniasis, caused by Leishmania infantum, is a neglected tropical disease, to which efforts in the innovation of effective and affordable treatments remain limited, despite the rising incidence in several regions of the world. In this work, the antileishmanial effects of sugiol were investigated in vitro. This compound was isolated from the bark of Cupressus lusitanica and showed promising activity...
Chitosan Plus Compound 48/80: Formulation and Preliminary Evaluation as a Hepat...
Bento, Dulce; Jesus, Sandra; Lebre, Filipa; Gonçalves, Teresa; Borges, OlgaCurrent vaccine research is mostly based on subunit antigens. Despite the better toxicity profile of these antigens they are often poorly immunogenic, so adjuvant association has been explored as a strategy to obtain a potent vaccine formulation. Recently, mast cell activators were recognized as a new class of vaccine adjuvants capable of potentiating mucosal and systemic immune responses. In this study, a co-a...