Research project

Organ-specific drug delivery has become increasingly important in recent years and will continue to gain importance with the further development of biological active substances. Although many of these are theoretically conceivable as drugs, their often poor cellular uptake and unspecific distribution pose a challenge that must be addressed. Transporter molecules like peptoids or nanoparticles are able to deliver pharmaceutical active components to their target tissue and thus provide otherwise missing organ specificity. The aim of this research project is to investigate cell penetrating peptoids as organelle- and organ-specific transporter molucules for in vivo imaging as well as for potential anti-cancer activity. For this purpose the advantages of the cyclization of peptoids are used to further improve organ specific drug targeting by achieving a high target specifity and reducing the toxicity of the compounds. To enable the visualization in cells and in vivo the peptoids are labelled with a fluorophore to allow for screening by fluorescent confocal microscopy.