Following pharmaceutical product development at Janssen Research Foundation, Prof. Stefaan De Smedt initiated interdisciplinary academic research on advanced drug delivery at Ghent University in 1999. Currently he is the director of the Ghent Research Group on Nanomedicines (at the Laboratory of General Biochemistry & Physical Pharmacy) which houses the Biophotonic Research Team (PI Prof. Kevin Braeckmans), the Ocular Delivery Team (PI Prof. Katrien Remaut and Prof. Félix Sauvage), the Lung Delivery team (PI Prof. Koen Raemdonck), the Vaccine Delivery Team (Dr. Ine Lentacker) and the Biopharmaceutical Development and Manufacturing Team (Prof. Hristo Svilenov). The research focus of our teams is on the delivery of bio-therapeutics, i.e. nucleic acids peptide and proteins. Our teams offer a multifaceted portfolio of competencies including pharmacology, material knowledge and expertise in drug delivery, nanotechnology, cell biology, immunology, bio-analytics, biophysics, optics and bio-photonics. Together with partners in academia and industry, we develop delivery concepts and technologies for novel advanced therapies.

We have a strong focus in our research on Nanomedicines. Nanomedicines can be defined as well designed nanoscopic particles (size of viruses) loaded with drugs. Challenges are to design nanomedicines in such a way that, after mucosal or parenteral administration, they deliver the encapsulated drugs in a most efficient way in diseased cells. Even though the medical potential of nanomedicines is tremendous, as exemplified by the mRNA-covid vaccines which are nanomedicines, a large gap remains between the scientific advances in the field and their translation into patient benefits.