ESR 12 – Avelino Ferreira

ESR project: Synthesis and biological evaluation of glycan-coated nanoparticles for enhanced drug delivery of bioactive compounds

Supervisor: Dr Marco Monopoli

Institution: RCSI, IE

Country of origin: Portugal

NanoCarb research: Avelino will develop methods to allow the synthesis and analysis of glycan-coated gold ultra-small nanoparticles (<10 nm). He will evaluate the interaction of this multivalent carbohydrate-platform with lectins. He will also prepare gold nanoparticles tagged with a fluorescent linker to probe binding to cells and cell surface motifs, such as integrins and glycopeptides. He will probe the exploitable mechanisms of cell uptake and assess the shedding of therapeutic payload in cells. 

Dissemination and Outreach

• Richard D. Perrins, Lee-Anne McCarthy, Angela Robinson, Kelly L. Spry, Valentin Cognet, Avelino Ferreira, John Porter, Cristina Espinosa Garcίa, Miguel Ángel Rodriguez, Diana Lopez, Ibon Perera, Kelly Conlon, Africa Barrientos, Tom Coulter, Alessandro Pace, Sarah J. M. Hale, Enrico Ferrari and Csanad Z. Bachrati. Targeting Ultrasmall Gold Nanoparticles with cRGD Peptide Increases the Uptake and Efficacy of Cytotoxic Payload. Nanomaterials. 2022. Open Access.
• Avelino Ferreira, Patricia Pérez Schmidt, Valentin Cognet , Diana López, Ibon Perera, Miguel Rodríguez, Africa Barrientos. Synthesis and Characterization of Ultra-Small Gold Nanoparticles: Midatech Pharma MidacoreTM Platform. 3rD Glycobasque Meeting at CICBiogune in Bilbao, ES, 12-13 March 2020. Poster
• Avelino Ferreira, Jennifer Fernandez Alarcon, Sergio Moya, Paolo Bigini, Marco Monopoli. In vitro and In vivo Biological Evaluation of Functionalized Ultrasmall Gold Nanoparticles for Targeted Drug Delivery. ETP Nanomedicine conference, Braga, PT, 20-23 June 2022. Poster.