As the world population is getting older, neurodegenerative diseases outface modern society and become a serious social problem affecting also, due to their specificity, quality of life of people other than direct victims. Recently, adenosine receptors have been shown to be an attractive target for modulating dopaminergic neuronal death in Parkinson’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders, including ischemic and hemorrhagic brain injury, Huntington's disease, multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease. Currently, there is no specific adenosine receptor antagonist approved for using in neurological practice. Extensive studies in this area conducted by academia and pharmaceutical companies resulted in several agents, which are at the different stages of development.

In the search for adenosine receptor antagonists, several heterocyclic systems were investigated. Based on our previous computer modelling results, we are designing new fused heterocyclic compounds. We hypothesize that research in this direction may result in the invention of principally new type of adenosine receptor modulators, particularly antagonists of adenosine receptors.
Therefore we believe that the results of these exploratory projects may be effectively translated to the improvement of therapy of neurodegenerative disorders (1) directly by development of new potential therapeutic agents or (2) indirectly e.g. by (a) creation of new knowledge in form of structure-activity relationship, (b) identification of new heterocyclic cores, effective as lead compounds for the construction of potent and selective adenosine receptor antagonists and (c) improvement of ligand-receptor interaction models. The results will show the direction for further investigations and stimulate development of new approaches for the therapy of neurodegenerative diseases.

We have investigated the effects of a thin film of pegylated multiwalled carbon nanotubes spray dried onto preheated coverslips in terms of their ability to influence human mesenchymal stem cells' proliferation, morphology, and final differentiation into osteoblasts. Results clearly indicated that the homogeneous layer of functionalized nanotubes did not show any cytotoxicity and accelerated cell differentiation to a higher extent than carboxylated nanotubes or uncoated coverslips, by creating a more viable microenvironment for stem cells. Currently we are trying to replicate the above result in case of Graphene also.

Cancer is the leading global health crisis and breast cancer poses a significant threat to woman. WHO estimated that 519 000 deaths annually in the world are caused by breast cancer. In Singapore, breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in which about 1,100 women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year. Depends on disease condition and status, chemotherapy is administered by physicians to the patients. However, most common chemotherapeutic drugs suffer from problems such as solubility, bioavailability, adverse reactions, inability to penetrate solid tumour. Thus, a “carrier” is thought to be needed to improve the above-mentioned limitations. Nano-carriers are increasingly attracting the interest as drug-vehicles due to their favourable size (which renders them able to escape from the normal phagocytic defences in the body) and intrinsic characteristics such as mechanical strength, thermal conductivity, as well as interesting magnetic and optical properties. Therefore our objective is to encapsulate bioactive compounds inside functionalized carbon nanotubes to selectively target tumour cells mitochondria while preserving the drugs from inactivation due to interaction with the environment. This ambitious goal has not been achieved and it represents a valuable challenge for researchers.

Single-cell detection is a crucial aspect in several branches of medicine and biology, allowing the study of immune system function, disease diagnosis and natural cell death. With regards to biology, an in-depth evaluation of the activities associated with a particular cell, in terms of its molecular uptake or production of unique features at its surface. Similarly, in the case of medicine, the clear understanding of cells’ behaviour, on the basis of their exposure to particular stimuli and conditions, represents a fundamental requirement in the development of bioactive agents aimed to target a specific cell subtype without unwanted side effects.
Therefore, in this project we present a novel cytometric system consisting of an advanced device that is able to isolate a few cells among a heterogeneous mixture, and to enhance the entrapment yields, which still represent the limiting aspect of this methodology. To that purpose, we will combine a micromechanical fluidic approach with a nanophotonic mechanism within a unique cell-based lab-on-chip (LOC) device, in order to provide a fast and effective tool able to entrap cells mainly on the basis of their dimensions. The realization of the LOC device required an initial phase of platform design, in which we chose samples of blood as it is made up of heterogeneous cells and platelets, with dimensions ranging from a few micrometers (e.g. erythrocytes, of 6-8 mm) to huge macrophages (of about 21 mm). The basic separation principle, analyzed with 3 main simulation designs, makes use of the inherent characteristic size differences between the different cell populations, to provide a quick and simple separation method. Coupled with micromechanical filters and microfluidics designs, some cell prototypes (e.g. cancer cells) have demonstrated to be effectively segregated from the majority of other cells without the need for additional active control or external forces.