Nanoengineered magnetoresponsive diagnosis and personalized treatment of pediatric inflammatory bowel disease

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is an incurable, inflammatory condition of the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) that affects millions of patients worldwide and places an enormous economic burden on society. Most alarmingly, children account for one quarter of all IBD cases with steadily increasing incidence.

Current clinical practices for IBD diagnosis and therapy are demanding and ineffective in terms of treatment outcome, patient compliance and cost and by far not optimized for children.

Our aim is to establish a theranostic platform for diagnosis and personalized treatment of pediatric IBD by an interdisciplinary approach bridging discovery of disease biomarkers, nanomaterial and drug delivery system engineering to manufacture of personalized dosage forms.

We will capitalize on scalable and reproducible flame engineering to tailor the properties of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPION) and achieve functionalities beyond their current use in the clinic.

This multifunctional material will serve as contrast agent in magnetic resonance imaging, tracer particle in magnetic particle imaging and for hyperthermia-triggered drug release.

Ligands for disease biomarkers identified by global protein quantification will ensure targeted delivery of the theranostic SPION.

We will push the frontiers of magnetic bioimaging for non-invasive and accurate diagnosis of IBD to guide stimuli-responsive drug delivery.

To optimize the treatment of sick children, we will design personalized oral dosage forms incorporating our targeted drug carriers by additive manufacturing.

The nanoengineering approach along with industrially relevant microencapsulation and 3D printing technologies will provide fundamental insight into physicochemical properties that govern the targeted use of nanomaterials in the challenging GIT environment.

The outcome of this research will support personalized therapy of pediatric IBD, improving patient quality of life and reduce the healthcare burden.