Adaptive Design and Assembly of Polymer-based nanoplaTforms for smart gene and drug delivery

Recent breakthroughs in gene therapy have cleared the way for a larger second wave of medicines and established the groundwork for next-generation technologies. An effective gene delivery system is essential for gene therapy to be successful. As some of the most adaptable building blocks in soft nanotechnology, natural and synthetic macromolecules are the main focus in the development of delivery vectors with specialized compositions and functions. In this project, we propose a novel computational approach to smart tune polymers and/or nanocomposite architectures as efficient building blocks for polymer-based nanoplatforms (PBNs). We will (i) create delivery vectors depending on the gene or drug that needs to be delivered while reducing the socio-economic burden of various diseases. We will also (ii) develop a novel protocol to find drug-excipient combinations that produce stable, self-assembled polymer-based nanoplatforms as smart delivery vectors. These will represent the scaffold that is needed to shift from the traditional drug/gene delivery to personalized medicine. Cutting-edge developments in artificial intelligence and state-of-the art modeling approaches will be all combined in the adaptive design of the polymer-based nanoplatforms in a synergistic fashion and show how computational modeling can lead to the discovery of novel delivery vectors with technological applications.