Control of magnetic particle transport with applied fields

Functionalized magnetic nanoparticles are considered to be the cornerstone of many next-generation biomedical technologies. These biocompatible tiny objects (hundreds of times smaller than the red blood cells) can potentially be introduced into a living organism and then remotely controlled via applied magnetic fields. The fields can be simultaneously used for many purposes: to safely guide the motion of particles inside the body; to track and visualize their spatial distribution; to release drug molecules encapsulated within the particles on demand; to locally increase temperature in order to destroy cancer cells without damaging healthy tissues; or to induce hydrodynamic flows in order to erode blood clots. However, there are still a lot of practical challenges that prevent a widespread day-to-day usage of magnetic nanoparticles in medical applications. The project is aimed to tackle one of such core challenges namely, the problem of an efficient field-controlled transport. The truth is, there are a lot of factors that can affect the nanoparticle responsiveness to the applied field. For instance, due of their small sizes, particles are always subjected to intensive thermal fluctuations (the so-called Brownian motion). If the field is not strong enough, fluctuations will randomly disrupt particle trajectories and will not allow them to follow the field precisely. In the presence of external flows, the task of making particles go where one needs them to go becomes even harder. Besides, the motion is often affected by a non- trivial interplay between particle internal structure, its shape and size, as well as interparticle interactions (in situations, when the particle concentration is high). No theory exist, that allows one to fully take into account all these factors at the same time. As a result, practitioners often have to resort to a lengthy and expensive trial-and-error approach while designing new nano-transportation systems. The aspiration of the project is to combine state-of-the-art theoretical and computational techniques from different branches of physics (magnetism, fluid dynamics and statistical mechanics) and to create the most accurate to date model of the magnetic nanoparticle motion in the presence of a magnetic field. The model will be meticulously tested with the help of experimental data from out international partners. Subsequently, it will allow to greatly accelerate and modernize the development cycle of novel medical nanodevices.