11 project partners from academia and industry have joined forces in the PHOENIX project to create an Open Innovation Test Bed for nano-pharmaceuticals. PHOENIX (Pharmaceutical Open Innovation Test Bed for Enabling Nano-pharmaceutical Innovative Products) is a research project funded by EU’s Horizon2020 research programme and it aims at providing services to the market for the development, testing, safety assessment, GMP production and commercialization of nano-pharmaceuticals.
Continue reading “Start of the Phoenix project”Nano2Clinic webinar
On February 17th 2021 at 4 pm the first COST Action CA17140 Nano2Clinic webinar will be held. For the training session, Prof. Lajosh Balogh will give a lecture on “Manuscript preparation and publications – the basics.” For the dissemination session, Dr. Rinea Barbir (PhD student in the group of our WG2 leader Dr. Ivana Vinković Vrček and recipient of an STSM grant) will give a talk on “Steady-state fluorescence quenching method for evaluation of nano-bio interactions”. More information can be found on the official website.
Thesis topic defense – K. Ilić
On February 2nd 2021 at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Biochemistry, the public presentation of the thesis topic was held by PhD student Krunoslav Ilić. The proposed thesis title was “Evaluation of combined effect of silver and polystyrene nanoparticles on model immune cell lines”, supervised by Dr Ivan Pavičić and Prof Petra Turčić. The defense was held in front of the commission consisting of: Prof Anita Hafner, Prof Tin Weitner and Dr Dragomira Majhen.
Lara Zoric – Rector’s Award winner
Lara Zorić, student from Faculty of Pharmacy and Biochemistry has won the Rector’s Award for the academic year 2019./2020. Her paper “Development and validation of HPLC-FD method for the simultaneous determination of doxorubicin metabolites in the urine of rats” has been awarded in category A – “Individual scientific or artistic work”.
The paper is a result of research on projects Supramolecular Synthesis of Self-Assembled Functional Nanomaterials and Complex Chemical Systems (SUPeRNANO, IP-2018-01-6910) and Safe-by-Design Approach for Development of Nano-Enabled-Delivery Systems to Target the Brain – SENDER (HRZZ-PZS-2019-02-4323).
We want to congratulate Lara, her mentor dr. sc. Ruža Frkanec and her comentor doc. dr. sc. Davor Šakić on this major success and we are looking forward to new collaborations.
Thank You Mandis Pharm
The research team of the project NanoFaceS, led by Dr Ivana Vinković Vrček, would like to thank Mandis Pharm company for their generous monetary donation. The funds donated were invested in the purchase of the new incubator for cell culture experiments, which allowed for the continuation of our research.
Thesis topic defense – B. Pem
On July 7th 2020 at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Biochemistry, the public presentation of the thesis topic was held by PhD student Barbara Pem. The proposed thesis title was “Mechanism of interaction of endogenous biothiols with silver and gold nanoparticles”,supervised by Dr Ivana Vinković Vrček and Prof Valerije Vrček. The defense was held in front of the commission consisting of: Prof Mario Jug, Dr Ivana Perković and Dr Robert Vianello.
Thesis topic defense – R. Barbir
On July 7th 2020 at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Biochemistry, the public presentation of the thesis topic was held by PhD student Rinea Barbir. The proposed thesis title was “Interactions between silver and gold nanoparticles of different sizes, shapes and surface structures with proteins of different glycosylation status”, and it is mentored by Dr Ivana Vinković Vrček and Prof Sanja Dabelić. The defense was held in front of the commission consisting of: Prof Tin Weitner, Prof Olga Gornik and Dr Darija Domazet Jurašin.
Guest researcher from Jena
The NanoFaces group hosted a guest junior researcher from the Leibniz Institute for Photonic Technology, Jena, Germany, from December 9th to 16th. PhD student Ekaterina Podlesnaia is working on method development for anisotropic gold nanoparticle synthesis, and is planning to expand her work to other nanoparticle types.
The aim of her visit was to observe and learn methods for the synthesis of silver and selenium nanoparticles of different shapes and sizes. NanoFaces group also benefited from her experience. The visit resulted in strengthening of Croatian-German collaboration through the Bilateral project and the exchange of knowledge was for the benefit of both parties.
Research stay in Jena
PhD student Barbara Pem spent time at the Leibniz Institute for Photonic Technology in Jena, Germany from November 11th to December 7th 2019, as a part of the research visits financed by the Bilateral project Germany-Croatia.
Student Pem learned the technique localised surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) and performed the experiments to monitor fibrinogen binding to the gold nanoparticle surface, which directly continues the line of research of other students in the NanoFaceS group. Also, during her stay she performed preliminary measurements of protein-nanoparticle interactions by surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). Her newly acquired knowledge she can apply to the continuation of the research after coming back to Zagreb.
DNA Middle Germany Meeting
On Friday November 29th, the DNA Middle Germany Meeting was held at the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology in Leipzig, Germany. The meeting was co-organised by Leibniz Institute for Photonic Technology from Jena and the University of Potsdam. The aim was to gather experts on DNA research and nanoparticle development for sensing and diagnostic applications.
PhD student Barbara Pem held a short presentation about the NanoFaceS project titled: “Interaction of metallic nanoparticles with biomolecules: the implications for nano-bio interface”.
The presentation is available by following this link.