The Crystal4skin project will focus on nanocrystal medicines administered through the skin

The development of nanocrystalline medicines for cutaneous administration is the main objective of the Crystal4skin—ERA Talents Fellowship project, which started in CATRIN-RCPTM. Thanks to the prestigious EU Horizon-Widera-2022-Talents grant, Gabriela Scheider Rauber will come to Olomouc to participate in its implementation. Previously, she worked at the Politecnico di Torino and she also has experience with research in Great Britain, USA and Brazil.

The aim of the project is to find answers to questions: “How do nanocrystals interact with skin? Are they promising just because of their size or are there other structural attributes driving their performance and safety characteristics?

“The development of nanoformulations targeting alternative delivery routes has been increasingly used to rescue drug candidates from clinical failure. The Crystals4Skin project will focus on the administration of nanocrystalline drugs through skin, specifically via the appendageal route. The large contact area and storage volume of the hair follicle, as well as the facilitated access to the bloodstream, make it a promising route for the administration of nanoparticles. The main goal of the project is to assess structure-to-particle-to-property relationships that drive the performance of crystals delivered through skin,” said Scheider Rauber.

To do so, Crystals4Skin has brought together a multidisciplinary team of researchers with expertise ranging from biophysics to biopharmaceutics to materials chemistry to product manufacturing. The project is supervised by Katerina Poláková, leader of the RCPTM-CATRIN BioMed group, and part of the research will be carried out as a secondment stay in Prof. Thiago Caon’s group at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC, Brazil). The project deliverables could be translated into application-driven strategies used to decrease the challenging—and often excruciatingly long and expensive—gap between fundamental research and pharmaceutical product development.

“Crystals4Skin aims to find answers to the control and use of safe and efficient nanomedicines as part of ongoing discussions between regulators, academics and industrial parties,” added Poláková.