Jennifer Cauzzo

Thesis is available here!

The defense will still be streamed here!

The trial lecture will start at 10:00 AM.

The theme for the trial lecture will be:  "Current and future roles of lipid nanoparticles for mRNA vaccination"

Link for the trial lecture!

The defence will start at 12:15 AM. 

Link for the defence!

A recording of the disputation will be available for 24 hours.

Abstract of thesis:

Nanocarriers are small, mostly spherical structure of around 100-200 nm, which changed clinical therapy with the so-called nanomedicine. We all witnessed a huge impact the lipid-based nanocarriers had in delivery of Covid-vaccines, confirming not only that nanomedicine is here to stay, but also that success is reachable. However, to avoid disappointment in animal and human studies, we dived into deeper characterization of the most relevant nanocarriers, liposomes, to understand and predict the in vivo challenges. Following the concept that seeing is believing, we focused on using advanced microscopy as a tool to characterize and understand nanocarriers, their interactions with biological environment, and their accumulation inside the cells. Fluorescence imaging was the horsepower of this work, to which we added some options that do not require bright molecules to begin with. Nanomedicine is the present and future of medicine. We propose advance microscopy as tool to achieve it faster.

Main Supervisor

Professor Nataša Škalko-Basnet, Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Health Sciences, UiT The Arctic University of Norway

Co-Supervisor

Associate Professor Ann Mari Holsæter, Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Health Sciences, UiT The Arctic University of Norway

Dr. Aurélie Vigne, Elvesys, France

Evaluation Committee

Professor Jessica Rosenholm, Åbo Akademi University, Finland – 1st opponent.

Professor Ulrich Massing, Andreas Hettich GmbH &Co KG, University of Freiburg, Germany- 2nd opponent.

Associate Professor Elizabeth Aarag Fredheim, Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Health Sciences, UiT The Arctic University of Norway – Third member and chair of the evaluation committee.

Chair of the Defense: Professor Guro Forsdahl, Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Health Sciences, UiT The Arctic University of Norway