Attana and University College of Dublin collaborated between 2014 and 2017 on the EU-funded project NanoClassifier.

The project aimed at developing new methods for evaluation and screening of nanoparticles for therapeutic applications.  In a new joint scientific publication some of these methods are published. This means that Attana strenghten our offering towards customer working with nanoparticles for therapeutic nanoparticles.

Proteins and other biomolecules in human biological fluids interact with the surfaces of nanoparticles. These interactions generate a coating (corona) around the nanoparticles which is the nanoparticles interface in the human body. Attana´s technology was used to characterized corona coated nanoparticles interactions with different biomolecules. The obtained information is a valuable tool to optimize nanoparticles for therapeutic applications and to improve the predictability of in vivo performance of the nanoparticles. During the EU-project several different assays have been developed based on Attana’s technology and some of the results have now been published in the journal Nanoscale. In the paper, accessible functional epitopes of transferrin-coated nanoparticles are quantified and their number is correlated to differences in nanoparticle size and functionalization. The label free in flow target recognition pushes the assays into a more in vivo-like scenario than previous technologies. The assays are applicable to a wide array of nanoparticles and consequently hold the potential to become a standard technique for the classification of nanoparticles based on their biological external functionality.