TRAIN-HEART Network

The TRAIN-HEART consortium, funded by the European Commission (2019-2023), is made up to train a league of 15 promising fellows that harness novel insights in the pathogenesis of ischemic heart failure, study the therapeutic potential of existing RNA therapeutics and improve its efficacy by the design of novel drug delivery systems.


People

TRAIN-HEART brings together leading academic teams and (biotech) companies covering various disciplines ranging from fundamental research to clinical pharmacology and gene therapy to drug delivery applications, have teamed up in the European Union.


Research Programme

The TRAIN-HEART network aims to gain viable insight in the pathogenesis of ischemic heart failure which will serve as a basis for drug discovery and drug delivery efforts that aim to therapeutically target specific molecules and mechanisms within cardiomyocytes for the treatment of ischemic heart failure.


Contact

If you have any questions you can fill in the form or mail us directly: info@train-heart.eu.





News

Chitosan hydrogels incorporating colloids for sustained drug delivery

The research group at Lyon Unversity hosts research fellow 11 in the TRAIN-HEART network (Mr. Hussein Genedy) who currently work chitosan nanoparticles as drug delivery tool for therapeutic microRNAs in the context of ischemic heart failure. The supervisor (Prof. Alexandra Montembault) recently contributed to a review paper on the potential chitosan hydrogels for sustained drug delivery.


Review abstract: In today's biomedical research, a huge effort is being made towards the development of efficient drug delivery systems, achieving sustainable and controlled delivery of drugs. Chitosan (CS) hydrogels are high water content materials with very relevant biological properties to that purpose. Their use for a local and delayed delivery has already been demonstrated for a wide variety of therapeutic agents. One relatively recent strategy to improve these CS-based systems consists in the insertion of colloids, embedding drugs, within their three-dimensional matrix. This provides a second barrier to the diffusion of drugs through the system, and allows to better control their release. The main objective of this review is to report the many existing complex systems composed of CS hydrogels embedding different types of colloids used as drug delivery devices to delay the release of drugs. The various biomedical applications of such final systems are also detailed in this review.


You can access the full article HERE .