Cell and nanoparticle transport in tumour microvasculature: The role of size, shape and surface functionality of nanoparticles

Through nanomedicine, game-changing methods are emerging to deliver drug molecules directly to diseased areas. One of the most promising of these is the targeted delivery of drugs and imaging agents via drug carrier-based platforms. Such drug delivery systems can nowbe synthesized from awide range of differentmaterials, made in a number of different shapes, and coatedwith an array of different organic molecules, including ligands. If optimized, these systems can enhance the efficacy and specificity of delivery compared with those of non-targeted systems. Emerging integrated multiscale experiments, models and simulations have opened the door for endless medical applications.Current bottlenecks in design of the drug-carrying particles are the lack of knowledge about the dispersion of these particles in themicrovasculature and of their subsequent internalization by diseased cells (Bao et al. 2014 J. R. Soc. Interface 11, 20140301 (doi:10.1098/rsif.2014.0301)). We describe multiscale modelling techniques that study how drug carriers disperse within the microvasculature. The immersed molecular finite-element method is adopted to simulate whole blood including blood plasma, red blood cells and nanoparticles. With a novel dissipative particle dynamics method, the beginning stages of receptordriven endocytosis of nanoparticles can be understood in detail. Using thismultiscale modelling method, we elucidate how the size, shape and surface functionality of nanoparticleswill affect their dispersion in the microvasculature and subsequent internalization by targeted cells.