Alexander Kros | Leiden University

Alexander Kros is interested to obtain curiosity-driven and fundamental molecular-level insight into transport phenomena related to drug delivery. One of the long-standing grand challenges in the nanomedicine field is the delivery problem, which can be better understood and potentially solved when (in vivo) transport phenomena are understood at the molecular level. My prestigious NWO-VICI personal grant (2015) was therefore used to develop targeted membrane fusion as a way to deliver drugs in vivo with high efficiency. The focus of this project is to design fusogenic delivery system targeting specific tissues/organs in vivo. In recent years, he recognized the significant issue that chemists often test (complicated) drug delivery tools predominantly in an in vitro setting due to lack of access to suitable and relevant in vivo models. Therefore, Kros dedicated significant efforts in the past 5 years in utilizing zebrafish larvae as a transparent, easy-to-manipulate, medium-to-high-throughput (up to 100 intravenous injections per day) in vivo prescreening model to bridge the gap between in vitro cell culture and in vivo mammalian models. This resulted in several publications (e.g. published in Nat.Commun. Adv.Mater., ACSnano, AngewChem, Adv.Drug.Del.Rev.) where the in vivo behaviour of nanomedicine (e.g. lipid nanoparticles, liposomes) was evaluated using zebrafish and subsequently translated to mice, resulting in new and unexpected insights that cannot be obtained using in vitro models