ENDONANO is a European Industrial Doctorates (EID) funded in the framework of H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie ITN programme. By merging the beneficiaries’ expertise in immunology, nanotechnology and physics into a broader approach to address toxicology and safety and related regulatory issues, the ENDONANO network aims at delivering industry-oriented PhD training of young scientists in the area of safety regulations for drugs and medical devices. In particular, ENDONANO aims at developing new concepts and methods for the unbiased and quantitative evaluation of bacterial endotoxin in complex matrices, and at laying the groundwork for developing new commercially exploitable assays thereof.
Endotoxin (lipopolysaccharide, LPS) is ubiquitous environmental contaminant coming from the Gram-negative bacterial cell membrane. Activation of innate immune cells by LPS is a major step of the defensive inflammatory response against bacteria, but excessive activation leads to a burst of inflammation and to cell death.
Safety regulations for drugs and medical devices encompass proving the absence of contamination by LPS. All kits, of which the most common is the Limulus Amebocyte Lysate (LAL) assay, present disadvantages for detecting endotoxin or pyrogens. Thus, new more robust and reliable assays are therefore needed, which could bypass the variability and unreliability of current assays. Moreover, since NP are able to bind LPS and because of their chemical-physical properties, NP themselves can be exploited as a tool for endotoxin detection.
The goals of ENDONANO include: 1. Investigating the capacity of endotoxin to induce inflammatory reactions in human; 2. Developing new methods based on endotoxin capture by metal nanoparticles in complex matrices (biological fluids, emulsions, gels, etc.); 3. Implementing detection methods for the quantitative endotoxin measurement in NP formulations; 4. Planning assay prototypes to be developed and validated for commercial purposes.
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Website
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https://www.endonano.eu/
External link for EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions. ENDONANO ITN-European Industrial Doctorate (EID)
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Industry
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Biotechnology
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Company size
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51-200 employees
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Type
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Partnership
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Specialties
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Nanontechnology and Immunology
