Gola nanopartícles for biomedical applicationssynthesis, conjugation and "in vitro" experiments

Abstract

The tremendous achievements ¡n nanotechnology over the last few years have been closely related to a growing understanding of various physical and Chemical processes that make nanometer scales different from both macroscopic scales and atòmic scales. As challenging as this is, nanoparticles and macromolecules enable a substantially greater ability of control than àtoms as building blocks for new materials and thus are well positioned to contribute significantly to new materials. The diversity of components and processes leads to the recognition of the critical role of cross-disciplinary research, including not only that between traditionally different áreas within chemistry, but also between chemistry and biochemistry, physics, and a number of engineering disciplines. In this thesis we address the design of nanoparticles conjugates for biomedical applications.The interdisciplinary character of this freíd implies the synthesis (control of the size and shape), conjugation (peptide, proteins and drugs), stabilization (charges and steric), characterization (physico-chemical and structural) and the study of the properties (optical, thermal) of the nanoparticles for their final use in as biomedical agents. These biológica! applications include the use of gold nanoparticles as local and remote entities to manipúlate protein aggregates and the macrophage activation towards peptide-conjugated gold nanoparticles.