UNAT

Ultra-small Nanohybrides for Advanced Theranostics

Principal investigator: Michele Iafisco

Personnel involved: Alessio Adamiano, Lorenzo Degli Esposti, Sara Gandolfi, Federica Mancini

Starting date: 01/04/2021
Duration: 60 months
Total funding: 832.600,00 €
Action: H2020-MSCA-RISE-2020
CNR-ISSMC role: Partner
Coordinator: Olivier Tillement (Universite Lyon 1 Claude Bernard)
Consortium: Universite Lyon 1 Claude Bernard (Francia); Corporation Science Park Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv (Ucraina); Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (Italia); Bioemission Technology Solutions Ike (Grecia); Glincs (Francia)
Sito web: https://www.unat-project.eu

Nanoscale materials have gained a place in the spotlight as enablers of combination diagnostic-therapeutic technologies due to their tiny penetrating sizes and their unique functional properties. Nanohybrids that contain both organic and inorganic components, including metallic ones, offer tremendous opportunity for the functionalisation of biological or bioactive molecules. The EU-funded UNAT project will explore the capabilities of metal-carbon nanohybrids for multimodal in vivo imaging and therapy of tumours via electromagnetic radiation. The diagnosis and therapy of cancer will be evaluated through an ambitious campaign of preclinical in vitro and in vivo experiments.
UNAT will associate an industrial partner from Greece (Bioemtech), a research and innovation centre from Ukraine (Science Park) and 2 academic research groups from France (UCBL) and Italy (CNR). The uptake efficiency and specific localization of the NHs in biological cells depending on their intentionally designed surface chemistry will be studied in detail. Extremely rich physico-chemical properties of the NHs will allow their application as universal multi-modal (MRI, PET, X-ray, Fluorescence, Photoacoustic) in-vivo bio-imaging agents. The multimodal imaging strategy will allow us to correlate the images obtained with the use of various imaging facilities to increase general reliability of visualization of the NHs localization in tumours. Various exciting electro-magnetic sources used for medical purposes will be simultaneously used for therapy of cancer tissues containing the incorporated NHs. Strongly complementary research experiences of the partners involved in UNAT and a high degree of cooperative integration between them will allow a deep scientific study of the theranostic potential of the NHs.

Publications and patents

• Fluorescent Carbon Dots from Food Industry By-Products for Cell Imaging. Federica Mancini, Arianna Menichetti, Lorenzo Degli Esposti, Monica Montesi, Silvia Panseri, Giada Bassi, Marco Montalti, Laura Lazzarini, Alessio Adamiano and Michele Iafisco. Journal of Functional Biomaterials. 2023, 14(2), 90