CAREER: Elucidating the Mechanism of Ionic Liquid-Coated Nanoparticle Interactions with Blood Components

Understanding how nanomaterials interact with the human body is a critical step to their safe and effective use in medicine. When nanoparticles are injected into the bloodstream, they encounter a rich environment, replete with diverse kinds of cells and proteins. Dr.

Eden Tanner and her team at the University of Mississippi have developed an ionic liquid nanoparticle coating technology which enables selective in situ “hitchhiking” of nanoparticles onto different kinds of blood cells. This CAREER project will investigate this phenomenon to understand why and how this hitchhiking occurs, what impact it has on the cell membranes, and measure the strength of the forces between the nanoparticle and the cell membrane.

This research project will provide critical fundamental knowledge on the interaction of charged materials with components of the bloodstream. Supported by Dr. Tanner and her lab, the student participants will be recruited from the Increasing Minority Access to Graduate Education Rising Science Star Program.

These cohorts of Mississippi-based African American undergraduate scholars will be intensively mentored and supported from their first day of college until graduation and beyond, preparing them to enter graduate school and for careers as scientific leaders. Participants will work with the PI to return to their high schools to deliver outreach activities, thereby creating a robust, supportive pipeline of scientists and ultimately diversifying the scientific workforce.

The research objective of this CAREER program is to interrogate the interactions between ionic liquid-coated nanoparticles and blood components. The Tanner lab at the University of Mississippi has demonstrated that successful surface modification of poly(lactic-co-glycolic) acid nanoparticles with a choline carboxylic acid-based ionic liquid results in preferential adhesion of the ionic liquid-nanoparticles to different blood components in whole blood.

A key innovation will be determining the dynamics and mechanisms of adhesion of the ionic liquid-polymeric nanoparticle composites onto blood cell surfaces. The project will consist of the following three objectives: advance knowledge on the mechanism of attachment between the ionic liquid-nanoparticles and the cell membrane (Objective 1), assess the impact of the hitchhiking on the cell membrane (Objective 2), and measure the strength of the attractive forces and the effect of hitchhiking on adhesion to the blood vessel wall (Objective 3).

The PI will use a host of analytical techniques to accomplish these objectives, including molecular dynamics simulations, optical tweezers, liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, and small angle X-ray scattering. The educational objective of this CAREER program is the establishment of the Increasing Minority Access to Graduate Education Rising Science Star Program, an intensive mentoring program that immerses cohorts of Mississippi’s African American Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics students in research from their first day of college until their last (3 participants a year, 15 total).

Partnering with the existing National Science Foundation-funded Increasing Minority Access to Graduate Education program, the project’s educational approach will provide the Rising Science Star Scholars with a high degree of social, financial and academic support, paving their path to graduate school and a scientific career. The PI will work in partnership with the participants to travel back to their high schools to conduct outreach activities.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.