Transport of particles at small-scales by the active intestinal mucosa

Mucus is a complex fluid that protects our intestinal mucosa from pathogens. Its protection is so effective that the barrier properties of mucus must be overcome in order to orally deliver drugs by nano or microscopic carriers, thereby avoiding risk of infection associated with the daily injection of drugs such as insulin. However, recent experiments show that the intestinal mucosa is also active at the microscopic scale, leading to the hypothesis that transport in the mucus could also be advective, and opening gates for the oral delivery of nano or micro carriers.

The objective of this project is to develop an experimental set-up in order to  describe and quantify the transport of microparticles near the  intestinal mucosa using experiments that couple advanced techniques of physiology and microfluidics. The results will open the way to the development of new tools to characterize the propensity of drug delivery systems (e.g. microcapsules) to adhere to mucosa and reach specific sites.