Background:

Chronic diseases, such as diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular, and autoimmune disorders, have a significant impact on a large portion of the global population. These conditions present various challenges for patients, caregivers, healthcare providers, and the healthcare system.

One autoimmune disease difficult to treat is Multiple Sclerosis (MS), which is characterized by the immune system mistakenly attacking the myelin sheath, forming a protective layer around the axons that protect nerve cells.

Effective management of chronic conditions requires prescribing lifelong Disease-Modifying Therapies (DMTs) to the patients, such as drugs, stem cell treatments, or monoclonal antibodies (mABs). It is important to note that DMTs do not cure chronic diseases or repair permanent damage instead, they prevent disease progression.

Bioactives are natural compounds derived from plants, animals, or other organisms that exert biological effects on the body beyond essential nutritional benefits. When extracted from their natural source, bioactives, like Astaxanthin (ASX), exhibit enhanced biological properties such strong antioxidative, anti-inflammatory, anti-apoptotic, and neuroprotective effects, promising to regulate autoimmune responses in MS management with fewer side effects than their chemical-originated counterparts.

Due to ASX pour solubility in water, stability against light in temperature it is necessary to protect it from these influences. Help is provided by a nanoformulated drug delivery platform which typically encompasses nanoparticles, nanosuspensions, nanomicelles and nanoemulsions. All of these are aiming to improve drug solubility and bioavailability.

A promising approach is producing polydopamine (PDA) core-shells by using nanoemulsions and dopamine hydrochloride (DHC) or 3-(3,4-Dihydroxyphenyl)-L-alanine (L-Dopa). PDA has superior features, including light absorption, radical scavenging, biocompatibility, and biodegradability, protecting ASX from various external influences.

This thesis aims to optimize the production process of PDA core-shells by varying different parameters and different material combinations. It is important to find the right parameter combinations to secure reproducibility and the desired size. Furthermore, this work includes various analysis techniques and kinetic/cytotoxicity studies to prove the suitability of the drug formulation.

Objectives and work packages:

This work packages can vary depending on the current state of the work

Literature study to gain insights about nanoformulations, drug delivery and MS

Process optimization

Kinetic studies

Cytotoxicity studies

In addition to the theoretical and experimental work, various software programs should be trained. The results will be presented in a final report and as a presentation. Only the written thesis material counts for the assessment and grading of the thesis.