RESEARCH
During the last 3 years of his PhD thesis Pau has been actively leading several projects on smart nano and micro-systems for the delivery of encapsulated compounds at IRB Barcelona in collaboration with Ecopol Tech company, therefore being in close contact with the industrial segment of encapsulation technologies. He is the co-inventor and promoter of ECOSTRATAR technological platform.
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REGENERATIVE MEDICINE
Concretely, he had the good fortune to get involved and to have decision-power in a project with Polytechnic University of Catalonia focused on the functionalization of titanium implants via urea bonds with polyurethane-polyurea nanoparticles at their interfaces in aqueous media. They patented this novel methodology, which conferred bone regenerative and antibacterial properties to the metallic implant surface enabling multifunctional nanobiomaterials for advanced tissue regeneration. In this project they showed the excellent in vitro performance of their approach to promote osteoblast-like cells adhesion by specific interaction of the RGD peptides-functionalized nanoparticles with alphavbeta3 integrins in the cell extracellular membrane. Moreover, their roxithromycin-loaded nanoparticles suppressed the adhesion of bacteria in the nanomaterial surface.
This paper can be further explored at:
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- Rocas, P.; Hoyos-Nogués, M.; Rocas, J.; Manero, JM.; Gil J.; Albericio, F.; Mas-Moruno, C. Installing Multifunctionality on Titanium with RGD-decorated Polyurethane-Polyurea Roxithromycin Loaded Nanoparticles: Toward New Osseointegrative Therapies (Advanced Healthcare Materials, 2015, DOI: 10.1002/adhm.201500245).
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CANCER NANOMEDICINE
Also, he was key in the multidisciplinar national project involving Vall d’Hebron Hospital, Pharmamar company, Barcelona Science Park and Ecopol Tech to create multifunctional theranostic industrially scalable nanosystems for cancer therapy. In this case, the results lead to a patent and three publications, which he authorizes. Herein, he proved the importance of self-stratification in polymer nanoparticles to achieve high encapsulation stability under in vivo conditions and selective drug release in-target. Furthermore, they tested in vivo the RGD-functionalized nanoparticles encapsulating plitidepsin hydrophobic drug and concluded that their nanosystem enhanced plitidepsin pharmacokinetic profile, toxicity and biodistribution compared to control formulations. The patent and papers can be found as:
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- Method for producing a microencapsulate and corresponding reactive amphiphilic compound, microencapsulate and composition, 2013, WO 2014114838 A3.
- Cuscó Marigó, C.; Garcia, J.; Nicolas, E.; Rocas, P.; Rocas, J. Multisensitive drug-loaded polyurethane/polyurea nanocapsules with pH-synchronized shell cationization and redox-triggered release., (Polymer Chemistry, 2016, DOI: 10.1039/C6PY01275B).
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- Rocas, P.; Fernández, Y.; Schwartz Jr., S.; Abasolo, I; Rocas, J.; Albericio, F.. Multifunctionalized Polyurethane-Polyurea Nanoparticles: Hydrophobically Driven Self-Stratification at the o/w Interface Modulates Encapsulation Stability (Journal of Materials Chemistry B, 2015, DOI: 10.1039/C5TB01345C).
- Rocas, P.; Fernández, Y.; García-Aranda, N.; Foradada, L.; Schwartz Jr., S.; Calvo, P.; Avilés, P.; Guillén, M. J.; Rocas, J.; Albericio, F.; Abasolo, I. Improved Pharmacokinetic Profile of Lipophilic Anti-Cancer Drugs Using ανβ3-targeted Polyurethane-Polyurea Nanoparticles, Nanomedicine Nanotechnology, Biol. Med., 2017, Submitted.
- Rocas, P.; Rocas, J.; Albericio, F. Polyurethane and Polyurea Nanomedicines for Controlled Drug Delivery. A review., Journal of Materials Chemistry B, 2016, Submitted
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NANOIMMUNOTHERAPY
In addition, another project arose taking profit of the methodology developed in the previously mentioned projects. They collaborated with IDIBAPS and focused on dendritic cells targeting with corticosteroid loaded multifunctional nanoparticles to treat autoimmune diseases in a tissue specific fashion. They obtained human primary tolerogenic dendritic cells from budesonide-loaded nanoparticles exhibiting a potent and targeted nature in multicellular PMBCs cultures. Take a look at it here:
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