Sabrina Conoci
STMicroelectronics, Italy
Title: Graphene oxide nano-hybrid as innovative material for photo-stimulated NO release and photo-thermia
Biography
Biography: Sabrina Conoci
Abstract
Graphene Oxide (GO) is a low cost material having a wide range of potential uses in many research areas, including energy storage, nano-electronics, molecular bio-sensing and catalysis. GO is a hydrophilic, water-dispersible biocompatible compound. Due to its sheet-like structure, GO has a very large surface area and the presence of hydroxyl, epoxy and carboxyl groups on its surface enables its easy functionalization. The two external surfaces are ideal for drug loading through chemical conjugation or physical interaction, reaching values close to 200%, considerably higher than those observed for nanoparticles or other drug delivery systems. Due to its peculiarities, GO nano-therapeutic platforms carrying bioactive compounds ranging from small drug molecules to high molecular weight bioactive compounds such as antibodies, polynucleotides and proteins has been recently deeply investigated. In this contribution, we report a GO covalently bounded with a nitroaniline derivative nitric oxide (NO) photo-donor. This hybrid nano-platform is able to combine light-controlled NO release with photo-thermia when simultaneously irradiated with blue and green light, resulting in a bimodal bactericidal action against Escherichia coli.
