Smart nanoparticles for biomedicine: balancing basic and translational science

Place: conference room, IMDEA Nanociencia.

Abstract:

Nanotechnology can improve clinical practice in many areas, both in diagnostics and in novel therapeutics. However, to reach its full potential, the nanomedicine field must balance both basic research and translational progress. This talk will highlight recent advances along this continuum. On the basic science side, I will discuss the importance of high-resolution, multidimensional characterization techniques that provide important information not available with conventional methods, as well as the design and preliminary evaluation of novel stimuli-responsive nanomaterials. Moving toward early translational applications, I will present work on nanoparticle-based vaccines for allergy immunotherapy, which leverage controlled antigen presentation and tailored immune modulation to improve safety and efficacy over conventional approaches. Finally, I will describe efforts closer to clinical translation, focusing on the production and validation of nanoparticle-enabled systems for in vitro diagnostics. Together, these examples illustrate how both basic and translational science are key to developing the full potential of biomedical nanotechnology.

Short biography:

Juan Luis Paris holds a BSc and a PhD in Pharmacy from Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) (2013 and 2017, respectively). He carried out his PhD under the supervision of Prof. M. Victoria Cabañas and Miguel Manzano, at the Smart Biomaterials Research Group headed by Prof. María Vallet-Regí. His PhD thesis focused on the design, synthesis, characterization and biological evaluation of stimuli-responsive nanomaterials for application in biomedicine. During his predoctoral training, he completed two research stays in prestigious centers abroad: a 4-month stay at Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School (USA) in 2016 (with Prof. Daniel Kohane) and a 3-month stay at the University of Oxford (England) in 2017 (with Prof. Constantin C. Coussios). After defending his thesis, he enjoyed at the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (INL, in Portugal), under the supervision of Dr. Bruno Silva. During his time at INL he worked with soft materials for biomedicine, including lipid and polymer nanoparticles. Subsequently he was awarded a Sara Borrell contract from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, which he carried out at the Instituto de Investigación Biomédica de Málaga (with Prof. María José Torres), working on nanoparticles for allergy diagnosis and therapy. As part of this Fellowship, he was also a visiting scholar at Queen's University Belfast (Northern Ireland) for 8 months (February-September 2022), working with Prof. Ryan Donnelly on nanoparticle-loaded microneedle patches for allergy immunotherapy. Since January 2023, he is a Ramón y Cajal researcher at Instituto de Investigación Biomédica de Málaga y Plataforma en Nanomedicina-IBIMA Plataforma BIONAND. His independent research line focuses on the use of bio- and nano-materials for therapeutic immunomodulation in a variety of different diseases. As a summary of his scientific production, he has participated in over 40 conference communications, he has published 1 book chapter and 39 research articles and he is an inventor in a submitted patent application. Many of these articles were in leading journals in their discipline, such as Nature Biomedical Engineering, ACS Nano, Chemical Engineering Journal and Allergy, among others. He is (or has been) the Principal Investigator of 2 National Research Grants, 2 Regional Grants, and he has been recently awarded an ERC Starting Grant (2025 call).