Doctoral themes 2023

Novel strategies to engineer biodegradable metal-organic implants for smart drug delivery  

Supervisors

Marta M. Alves, martamalves@tecnico.ulisboa.pt 

Vânia André, vaniandre@tecnico.ulisboa.pt 

Isabel Correia, icorreia@tecnico.ulisboa.pt 

Registration Institution

Instituto Superior Técnico

Project description

Using metal implants as a means of controlled drug delivery is an exciting and promising field of research. However, there are concerns about the success rate of these implants and their impact on patients’ health status and well-being. This PhD project aims to address these concerns by developing biodegradable metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) for implants using sustainable methods. The biodegradable metal implants will be in situ engineered by mechanochemistry to respond to specific stimuli, such as changes in pH or temperature, allowing for precise drug delivery. The project will involve characterising new in situ synthesized metal-organic frameworks with innovative techniques to produce functional-smart implants. This approach will be closely supported by different analytic and spectroscopic techniques (e.g. EPR), depending on the metal used in the MOF. 

Biocompatibility testing will be carried out both in vitro and in vivo, and the degradation impact of the implants will be evaluated. The outcome of this research will gather MedLife, MatSoft and SusChem thematic lines and contribute to developing sustainable and biocompatible drug delivery systems with potential applications in treating various diseases, namely targeting cardiovascular diseases. A 3-6 months research mobility in University of Rome "Niccolò Cusano” for bioactivity studies is proposed.

Keywords

Biodegradable

Implant

Metallic

MOF

Smart