Nanotechnology to reduce the risks in care of children with bowel disease

Chronic inflammatory bowel diseases have long been a challenge in Europe and North America and are now spreading across Asia. Science needs to increase its knowledge of what cause the diseases while adding new tools for diagnosis and treatment. Especially in the care of children, as currently available methods entail significant risks for a young body, and since three years Alexandra Teleki, researcher in drug delivery, is leading a collaboration with the aim of creating a technology that will enable care without physical interventions or ionizing radiation.

“Every fourth patient develops the disease already as a child, and today sampling of biopsies under anesthesia is required to identify where in the gastrointestinal tract the inflammation is located and how active it is. Thereafter, healthcare can at best adapt the treatment to reduce the inflammation. With funding from the ERC, we are currently developing a method to use nanoparticles in order to both localize the inflammation and administer the drugs required to cure it.”

In a previously published article, the group presents a mapping of preclinical biomarkers with the potential to indicate inflammatory bowel disease and that the particle can bind to in the gastrointestinal tract. The particle that the team has chosen to proceed with is in turn simple to produce and flexible in size and composition, and Alexandra Teleki recently received the Viking Olof Björk scholarship. A grant presented to "promising researchers who are expected to become a future leader in their field".

“The scholarship will fund a stay at the Athens Biomedical Sciences Research Center where I, in collaboration with Dr. Vasiliki Koliaraki, one of the absolute foremost in our field, hope to take big and important steps forward in the development of the particle we are working with.”

In parallel, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research announced that Alexandra Teleki, as one of only thirteen researchers in Sweden, was granted funding for an Industrial Doctoral Project. With the grant, promoting cross-fertilization between academia and industry, Alexandra will recruit a PhD student that will share its working time between Uppsala University's Biomedical Center and AstraZeneca's site in Mölndal.

“It is inspiring to be selected in such a significant context, and although our initial goal is to simplify the demanding and traumatic experience the affected children go through, we hope that our results can eventually also be transferred to adult patients as well as several other intestinal diseases."

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• Lab Teleki

FACTS

• Alexandra Teleki is leading Project MAGNETO with 2M euro in funding from the European Research Council. Also participating is Christel Bergström, Per Artursson and Mia Phillipson (Uppsala University), Niklas Nyström and Mattias Paulsson (Academic Children's Hospital) and Carlos Rinaldi (University of Florida).
• Since its start in 2014, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research program has resulted in close to 120 industrial PhD students. The PhD student joining Faculty of Pharmacy/Lab Teleki and AstraZeneca will start work in 2024.
• Viking Olof Björk's scholarship is presented to promising young researchers  expected to become future leaders in their field and must be used to support a visit abroad to establish new collaborations with a focus on interdisciplinary projects at the intersection between medical technology and its close to clinical applications.

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text: Magnus Alsne, photo: Mikael Wallerstedt