Strategic research and technological development in nanomedicine: Application to cell culture, diagnosis and therapy of infectious diseases and cancer

One of the main objectives of this project will be the development of new non-invasive imaging tools for the diagnosis of CNS diseases. This objective will be addressed through four different initiatives:

1) The development of non-invasive, high-resolution anatomical imaging techniques and the deciphering of their correlation with tissue-cellular events, allowing us to analyze morphological changes in the brain as a consequence of the disease or in response to its treatment.

2) The development of non-invasive, high-resolution spatial and temporal functional imaging techniques, enabling us to advance our understanding of how CNS pathologies affect the brain from a functional perspective (with or without accompanying structural changes) and during the brain plasticity processes that may be triggered in response to the disease.

3) The development of new contrast agents for MRI that allow us to visualize events at the cellular or even subcellular level using a non-invasive technique (MRI) that would otherwise be unable to achieve this spatial resolution (molecular imaging techniques).

4) The development of automated analysis tools (software) that enable, on the one hand, the massive analysis of data generated with current imaging techniques in a reasonable time and with minimal effort, and on the other hand, a more accurate and unbiased quantification of the images, free from the observer's error, as occurs in manual analysis.

The second major objective of this project is to advance the knowledge and development of new tools for the controlled transport and release of drugs (often across barriers that hinder this process, such as the blood-brain barrier), which will increase the efficacy of various treatments for CNS diseases.