This course presents four aspects of bio-engineering that are important in the medical context: (i) drug delivery, (ii) microfluidics / lab-on-a-chip; (iii) biomarkers and biomimetics and (iv) key enabling technologies in rehabilitation and diagnostics. Developments in these areas, both individual and synergistic, are poised to provide foundations for advanced personalized diagnostics and targeted therapies.

The Introduction is designed to provide a common ground for all the students in the course by providing an overview of the fundamental concepts and definitions related to nanoscale phenomena. It is particularly important for students coming to this interdisciplinary area from different backgrounds to recognize that the same theoretical concepts or empirical phenomena may be described using different terminology by biologists, chemists, physicists, or engineers. Another common thread through the lectures of the Introduction is the connection between the physicochemical properties of materials at the nanoscale and their corresponding biomedical properties and functions. The following two sections cover the applications of advanced micro- and nanoscale engineered structures in medical Diagnostics and Therapeutics.

Diagnostic technologies are strongly interconnected with biomarkers: known biomarkers enable the development and operation of diagnostic devices, while simultaneously, these devices can also be used for discovery and personalization of new biomarkers. The Diagnostics section thus begins with introducing the fundamentals of biomarkers research and their applications in medical technology and personalized medicine. Fundamentals of microfluidics are then introduced to provide the basis for discussions of technologies enabled by microfluidic devices: biomimetics and organs on chips. Combined with biosensors, microfluidics also gives rise to advanced lab-on-a-chip devices, which promise to bring the most advanced real-time diagnostics to the point of care.

Therapeutic technologies are discussed with an emphasis on the use of micro and nanostructured materials to provide encapsulation and controlled release properties for cells and drug/gene delivery, including such specific implementations as magnetic nanoparticles, soft nanocarriers, nanobots, thin films and hydrogels. In combination with disease biomarkers, these technologies enable targeted and smart delivery of cells, drugs or genetic materials, while theranostics emerges as a combination of the diagnostic and therapeutic technologies in the same engineered platform.

An overview of the Nanocharacterization Methods concludes the first week of the course, with the goal of providing insight into how the designed and engineered chemical, physical, and biological properties of nanostructured materials can be measured and verified.

The second and third weeks of the course will be constituted by “hands-on” laboratory practice. In order to provide a faithful research experience to the attendees we will offer four different mini-projects, designed to integrate the knowledge acquired in the first week of the course into real project tasks, taking advantage of the state-of-the art equipment and facilities available.

The course is designed to be accessible for the medical school graduate students (or other biomedical background) who are interested in nanomedicine and nanotechnology, as well as for students with a background in nanotechnology or engineering interested in their medical applications.