A muliscale computational approach for the interaction of functionalized nanoparticles with the miscrovasculature

34/2018

A muliscale computational approach for the interaction of functionalized nanoparticles with the miscrovasculature

Sunday 3rd June 2018

Laurino, F.; Coclite, A.; Tiozzo, A.; Decuzzi, P.; Zunino, P.;

There is a pressing need in nanomedicine of quantitative predictive tools for the design of nanocostructs for therapeutic and imaging applications. The advance nano-fabrication technologies can control a large spectrum of design parameters of such constructs, which in turn affect their performance in treatments. However, tuning such parameters by means of a trial and error approach based on animal experiments is expensive and impractical. For this reason, computational models are emerging as complementary tools to guide the design and optimization of nano-based therapies. This work addresses this need, in the particular case of nanoparticles designed to be delivered in the vascular system and interact with the microvasculature. In particular, we develop a sophisticated multiscale and multiphysics computational model that is able to describe blood flow in the microvasculature combined with the detailed description of particle interaction with the wall on the basis of physically sound mechanistic approach. The model is then applied to simulate particle delivery to a representative portion of a tumor, with the aim to compare the distribution and accumulation of particles for different design parameters such as the deformability of the particle, the number and the strength of ligands distributed on the particle surface.

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