Periodic Reporting for period 1 - LADENTHER (LAser DEvelopment of Nanotools for quantum-based THERapy)
Reporting period: 2021-01-01 to 2022-12-31
This project is devoted to the development of novel approaches that can be further implemented in the field of biomedicine in order to make new strategies of the diagnostic and therapy of cardiovascular and oncologic diseases being one of the most serious problems in the world according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Finding new ways of the therapy of the aforementioned diseases leading to high excess mortality every year also significantly affecting economical aspects of our life is a very challenging scientific task around the world. The corresponding research performed in the framework of this project is a long-term scientific study requiring deep knowledge and understanding of the occurred physical, chemical and biological processes due to the high energy laser irradiation and statistical analysis of the obtained experimental data. In order to achieve the planned aims by solving corresponding issues, the last achievements in the fields of ultrafast laser and nano-technologies together with the expertise of bioengineers should be combined to have the synergy of these scientific directions. The overall objectives of the project are to build a base for future generation medicine by performing a fundamental research for further development of non-invasive quantum based techniques being able to solve crucial issues of the human health that will further positively affect economical aspects by decreasing the downtime, which can extremely affect the worldwide economics as it could be seen during COVID-19 epidemiological situation.
During the project, the ultrafast laser processing methods actively developing at the HiLASE Centre were employed for the implementation of the planned objectives aiming their long-term goals of the development of novel techniques of non-invasive diagnostic and therapy of the human health that significantly affects social and economic aspects considering in more details in the Technical Part of the report. Briefly, ultrafast laser ablation was employed to synthesize novel type of multicomponent nanoparticles consisting of several semiconductor and metallic elements in form of one nanoparticle able to solve a required specific task simultaneously accompanied with low toxic effects due to the use of high chemical purity of used materials and methods. Moreover, the same laser sources able to generate the irradiation in the MID-IR spectral range with variable energy doses were also employed for the attempts of the mild modifications of different artificial biosamples being parts of a human body in order to develop methods of their non-invasive treatment in real conditions without any traditional surgery increasing the recovery time of patients. The dissemination of the performed during the Project research activities and obtained results were realised during the international scientific conferences, specially organized seminars where the researcher was invited, as well as using internet (e.g. ResearchGate, LinkedIn, YouTube, FaceBook etc.). Moreover, the PR team of the HiLASE Centre always supports the dissemination of the obtained scientific achievements in order to increase their visibility in the scientific world.
The goals and the corresponding activities in the framework of this project were very ambitious and novel for the researcher requiring a strong interdisciplinary collaboration in order to achieve the synergy between such scientific fields as laser-, nano- and bio-technologies that also implies the strong knowledge and skills in the corresponding scientific areas. The implementation of the research was performed during unpredictable extraordinary COVID-19 regulations significantly affecting the all planned tasks compelling out-of-the-box thinking in non-standard conditions and forcing to find out new ways of solving of different issues. Together with permanent communication with colleagues it contributed to the appearance of new ideas, novel implementation approaches or adaptation technologies etc. thus being beyond of the planned tasks and widening the performed research. The proposed in the project activities are the long-term research requiring multiple adaptation and approbation of new techniques and samples also permanently taking into account possible side-effects of the used ultrafast laser sources that they provide on other biotissues in real organisms. Nevertheless, the first achievements demonstrated promising perspectives of the employment of the quantum tools proposed in the project requiring further tiny adaptation of the used approaches that can lead to a high social and economic impacts due to the development and the implementation of novel technologies of the diagnosis and therapy of different health issues that can reduce the recovery time of patients due to the less invasive treatment of a human body positively affecting economic aspects of our life.