About the Project
Gold nanoparticles have found important applications in nanomedicine. They are particularly suitable as diagnostic platforms due to their tuneable optical properties, applicable to a range of sensing approaches which allows the formulation of novel multimodal nanosensors. Controlling the anisotropy of the nanoparticle shape while maintaining the shape and size monodispersity is a challenging task in the field of bottom up nanoparticle synthesis but also in physico-chemical characterisation.
The Nano Group led by Dr Zeljka Krpetic at The University of Salford Manchester is seeking a Ph.D. student for a project on novel anisotropic nanoparticles for a range of biomedical applications, i.e. investigation of antimicrobial properties of shaped or multicomponent nanoparticle systems.
Dr Krpetic has extensive experience in synthesis, functionalisation, characterisation and biological applications of nanoparticles (gold nanoparticles and nanoparticle shape libraries)1-3 and formulation of novel analytical approaches to high resolution nanoparticle characterisation. 4,5
In this, the student will receive the training relevant to the project development from Dr Krpetic’s lab on bottom-up synthesis of anisotropic nanoparticles, and will be encouraged to develop novel synthetic strategies for formation of new anisotropic metal nanoparticles with controlled geometric parameters and nanoparticle systems for diverse applications in the field of nanomedicine, i.e. diagnostics through sensing, cancer therapy and explore the antimicrobial properties of these novel constructs. Furthermore, Dr Krpetic will provide supervision and training on the surface functionalisation approaches, controlled nanoassembly and nanoparticle pysico-chemical characterisation techniques.
The student will be co-supervised in collaboration with Dr Chloë James expert in Medical Microbiology at The University of Salford,6 where they will receive necessary training in assays and approaches to assessment of the antimicrobial properties on selected strains of gram positive and gram negative bacteria.
Self-funded PhD students or student candidates interested in applying for external fellowship to undertake their PhD in the Nano Group at Salford University (e.g. Newton Fellowship, Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions etc.) are encouraged contact the supervisor via email at [Email Address Removed].
For more information on research within the School of Environment and Life Sciences please visit the School research website www.salford.ac.uk/environment-life-sciences/research
References
1. Željka Krpetic, Samia Saleemi, Ian A. Prior, Violaine Sée, Rumana Qureshi, Mathias Brust. Negotiation of Intracellular Membrane Barriers by TAT-Modified Gold Nanoparticles. ACS Nano, 2011, 5, 5195–5201.
2. Željka Krpetic, Ishwar Singh, Wu Su, Luca Guerrini, Karen Faulds, Glenn A. Burley, Duncan Graham. Directed Assembly of DNA-Functionalized Gold Nanoparticles Using Pyrrole-Imidazole Polyamides. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2012, 143, 8356-8359.
3. Marco A. C. Potenza, Željka Krpetić, Tiziano Sanvito, Qi Cai, Marco Monopoli, Joao M. de Araújo, Claudia Cella, Luca Boselli, Valentina Castagnola, Paolo Milani, Kenneth A. Dawson. Detecting the Shape of Anisotropic Gold nanoparticles in Dispersion With Single Patricle Extinction and Scattering. Nanoscale, 2017 (in press)
4. Philip Kelly, Chris Philip M. Kelly, Christoffer Åberg, Ester Polo, Ann O’Connell, Jennifer Cookman, Jonathan Fallon, Željka Krpetic,* Kenneth A. Dawson*. Biological Identity and Recognition of Nanoparticles: Epitope Mapping of the Biomolecular Corona. Nature Nanotechnology, 2015, 10, 472-479.
5. Željka Krpetic, Adam M. Davidson, Martin Volk, Raphaël Lévy, Mathias Brust, David L. Cooper. High-Resolution Sizing of Monolayer-Protected Gold Clusters by Differential Centrifugal Sedimentation ACS Nano, 2013, 7, 8881–8890.
6. Jean-Marie Pagès, Chloë E. James & Mathias Winterhalter. The porin and the permeating antibiotic: a selective diffusion barrier in Gram-negative bacteria. Nat. Rev. Microbiol., 2008, 12, 893-903.
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