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Primary fields of research

Scientific Focus area

Of particular interest is the possible utilization of colloidal aqueous dispersions of lipids with confined inner nanostructures (such as cubosomes, hexosomes, and micellar cubosomes) as safe and efficient drug nanocarriers. The optimal utilization of these dispersions requires studying the impact of loading drugs on their internal nanostructures, and fully comprehending the interaction of these drug-loaded dispersed particles with the biological environment to ensure the efficient transportation of the solubilized drugs. In addition, it is of our interest to address the challenges of enhancing the stability of the dispersed particles under different conditions, and of modulating their nanostructure in order to optimize their loading of different drugs.

Background

1. Cubosomes and hexosomes as drug nanocarriers
2. Formation and characterization of drug nanocarriers
3. Characterization of stimuli-responsive self-assembled drug nanocarriers.
4. Hierarchically organized aqueous dispersions of self-assembled lipid phases: cubosomes, hexosomes, and emulsified microemulsions.
5. Formulation and characterization of O/W and W/O microemulsions.

Fields of interest

Design and characterization of nanomedicines, liquid crystalline phases, cubosomes, hexosomes, safe and efficient self-assembled drug nanocarriers

Current research

 Lipid-based nano-structured drug delivery systems:

https://pharmacy.ku.dk/research/section_pharm_design/pharm_phys_chem/lipid_based_nanostruc/

Cubosomes and hexosomes as drug nanocarriers

In situ characterization of drug formulations based on liquid crystalline phases

Master Projects

https://pharmacy.ku.dk/teaching/vacant_studentprojects/documents/Master-thesis-2016-pharmacy.pdf

Current Postdocs:

Dr. Mia Danielsen: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) represents the most common cause of liver disease with substantial health-care costs for its prevention or management. In line with the urgent global need for new therapies to treat patients with late-stage liver fibrosis, the collaborative interdisciplinary project deals with development and optimization of multifunctional nanotherapeutic cubosomal/hexosomes platforms for NAFLD treatment. The project focuses on engineering and characterizing advanced drug nanocarriers actively targeting hepatic stellate cells. The project is financed by the Danish Council for Independent Research | Technology and Production Sciences (FTP).

Dr. Seref Akay: Design, characterization, and evaluation of biofilm eradicating hybrid liquid crystalline nano-coatings for new 3D porous orthopaedic implant. Dr. Seref is awarded Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship. The grant is 1.6 mill DKK (214934 Euro). 

Dr. Gökçe Dicle Kalaycıoğlu: Versatile cubosomal/hexosomal carriers for cancer therapy. Dr. G. D. Kalaycıoğlu is awarded 2219 postdoctoral grant (number 1059B192203132) by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK).

Current PhD students:

Zahra Babaie: MICNANO project (2023-2026): Microfluidic synthesis and online characterization of cubosomal and hexosomal nanocarriers for colorectal cancer therapy. The project is financed by the Novo Nordisk Foundation (Grant number NNF22OC0079752).

Chenyang Wu: Versatile cubosomal and hexosomal nanocarriers for colorectal cancer therapy. The  project is financed by the China Scholarship Council (CSC). Primiary co-supervisor Associate Prof. Huiling Mu. 

Habibullah Jan: Cubosomes and hexosomes as versatile nanocarriers for prevention and treatment of biofilm infections. The  project is financed by the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC). Primiary co-supervisor Prof. Oana Ciofu (Department of Immunology and Microbiology, University of Copenhagen).  

Ibrahim Abdulbaqi (co-supervision, Main supervisor: Prof. H. Wahab (Universiti Sains Malaysia(USM), Malaysia)

Current Guest students:

Zahra Eskandari: Food-grade nano-self-assemblies (PhD student, main supervisor: Associate Prof. Seyed F. Hosseini)

Current Master students:

Tanmay Rajesh Lohiya 

 

Former Postdocs and students:

Roudabeh Foroughian (Master student)

Manija Nazim (Master student)

Amaia Amaia Huarte Llorens (Master student)

Janvi Sahukara (Master student)

Dr. Sana Ghayas (Postdoc): pH-responsive nano-self-assemblies for treatment of biofilm infections. The  project was financed by the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC). 

Ozra Alizadeh (Master student)

Simian Ahmed (Master student)

Nasir Mahmood Ahmad (Master student)

Navid Poorkhabaz (Master student)

Maha Diab (Master student)

Angelina Le (Master student)

Amy Mirzai Nielsen (Master student)

Gizem Bor (PhD student): BRAIN-PENNANO project: BRAIN PENetrating cubosomal and hexosomal NANOcarriers for glioma-targeting delivery. The project was financed by the Danish Council for Independent Research | Technology and Production Sciences (FTP).

William Schmidt Nannerup (Master student)

Saleh Lotfi

Wenyao Song (co-supervision, Danish co-supervisor, the Sino-Danish program, main supervisor: Prof. Guanglu Ge)

Shen Helvig (PhD student): NANOLYMPH: NANO-engineered LYMphotropic Cubosomes and Hexosomes. The project is financed by the Danish Council for Independent Research | Technology and Production Sciences. MAX4ESSFUN grant: Co-financing 6 months SAXS experiments by the Interreg project ESS & MAX IV Cross Border Science and Society

Samim Aryan (Master student: co-supervision)

Laura Amedovski (Master student: co-supervision)

Aria Aria Rahbar Barkadehi (Master student)

Balsam  Altemimei (Master student)

Mikail Atsiz (Master student)

Ghulam Rasool Sadat (Master student)

Evrim Sahin (Master student)

Begüm Nur Ödevci (Master student)

Sarah Ariabod (Master student)

Raghib Ghazal (Master student)

Xianrong Shao (Master student) 

Rama Prajapati (Master student)

Sabah Al-Hosayni (Master student)

Boi Vi Tran (Master student)

Umar Asghar (Master student)

Wael Alhalaq (Master student)

Firas Alturk (Master student)

Hasan Ammar Akram (Master student)

Christa Nilsson (PhD student): Cuboosmes and hexosomes as theranostic nanocarriers

Intan Diana Mat Azmi (Postdoc & PhD student):

Postdoc Project: NANO-engineered LYMphotropic Cubosomes and Hexosomes

PhD Project: Safe Cubosome and Hexosome Nanocarrier Design for Drug Delivery

The project was supported by the Staff Tranining Program (University of Puta Malaysia, UPM)

Aghiad Ghazal (Phd student): Formulation of soft self-assembled nano-pharmaceuticals (CONEXT project with Prof. Kell Mortensen)

Helene Andersen (Postdoc):NANO-engineered LYMphotropic Cubosomes and Hexosomes

Kirstin Khaliqi (Master student)

Mohammed-Jawad Tahir (Master student)

Erdal Avci (Master student)

Simon Pham (Master student)

Tadeusz Induszewski (Research assistant and Master student)

Ali Kazem (Master student) 

Ömer Faruk Özdemir  (Master student)

Sophie Schulha (Master student)

Selma Keceli (Master student)

Gültekin Caliskan (Master student)

Mark Gontsarik (Master student)

Sofie Fogh Hedegaard (Master student): Lipidic nanostructured aqueous dispersions as novel drug nanocarriers

Exchange/Guest and BA students:

Laura Woythe 

Somayeh Khanmohammadi (November 2019-May 2020) 

Esra Ilhan Ayisigi (November 2019-December 2019)

Jesper Sand Mortensen

 

Recent Grants:

1. OMEGA project (2024-2028, 6.190.286 DKK): Versatile OMEGA-3 fatty acid nanocarriers targeting hepatic stellate cells. The project is financed by the Danish Council for Independent Research | Technology and Production Sciences (FTP). Co-applicants:  Prof. Seyed Moein Moghimi (the Pharmaceutics and Nanomedicine research group, Newcastle University, UK) and Prof. Jens Lykkesfyldt (Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, University of Copenhagen).

2. MICNANO project (2023-2026, 2.926.972 DKK): Microfluidic synthesis and online characterization of cubosomal and hexosomal NANOcarriers for colorectal cancer therapy. It is financed by awarded grant from Novo Nordisk Foundation. Collaboration with Prof. Winnie Edith Svendsen and Dr. Maria Dimaki (DTU Bioengineering: Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine).

3. INP project 2019 & 2020 (Microfluidic Platforms for Drug Delivery Applications): 217.179 kr. Co-applicant: Associate Prof. Ozlem Yesil Celiktas (Bioengineering Department, Ege University, Izmir, Turkey). A grant from the Danish Agency for Science and Higher Education for initiating and exploring new networking and collaboration opportunities between Danish and Turkish research institutions

4. BRAIN-PENNANO project 2017-2021:  2.591.817 kr. The project is financed by the Danish Council for Independent Research | Technology and Production Sciences (FTP).

5. NANOLYMPH project 2013-2017: 5.432.056 DKK. The project is financed by the Danish Council for Independent Research | Technology and Production Sciences (Det Frie Forskningsråd for Teknologi og Produktion (FTP))

https://pharmacy.ku.dk/research/section_pharm_design/pharm_phys_chem/lipid_based_nanostruc/nanolymph_nano_engineered/

6. CoNEXT PhD project: PhD student Aghiad Ghazal

Project related to the UCPH Excellence Research Program with Kell Mortensen (Niels Bohr Institiute, Science), Susan Weng Larsen and Camilla Foged (Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences)

https://conext.ku.dk/

7. Danscatt: Annual financial support for SAXS experiments

8. Financial support for 2013-2016: 130000 DKK/year from the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia (Intan's PhD project).

Articles with open access

Molecules | Free Full-Text | Microfluidic Nanomaterial Synthesis and In Situ SAXS, WAXS, or SANS Characterization: Manipulation of Size Characteristics and Online Elucidation of Dynamic Structural Transitions (mdpi.com)

Cell medium-dependent dynamic modulation of size and structural transformations of binary phospholipid/ω-3 fatty acid liquid crystalline nano-self-assemblies: Implications in interpretation of cell uptake studies - ScienceDirect

A structurally diverse library of glycerol monooleate/oleic acid non-lamellar liquid crystalline nanodispersions stabilized with nonionic methoxypoly(ethylene glycol) (mPEG)-lipids showing variable complement activation properties - ScienceDirect

Nanomaterials | Free Full-Text | Continuous Microfluidic Production of Citrem-Phosphatidylcholine Nano-Self-Assemblies for Thymoquinone Delivery (mdpi.com)

Molecules | Free Full-Text | Non-Lamellar Liquid Crystalline Nanocarriers for Thymoquinone Encapsulation (mdpi.com)

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0003747

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0002072

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0000479

Teaching

Physical Chemistry, Lectures and class teaching

Physical Chemistry, Laboratory Course

Academic Awards and Honors

Årets Underviser 2011: the teacher of the Year 2011 award from the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciecnes (KU). 

Lise-Meitner Fellowship (2003 & 2004) from FWF (the Austrian Science Funds).