The primary goal of the lab is the intracellular delivery of drugs. For this research we are combining different technologies in the field of Structural biology (X-ray and NMR), Bioinformatics, super resolution light microscopy, electron microscopy and animal imaging.
For the targeting of drugs we are making use of antibody fragments obtained from antibodies from the Llama. These fragments consist of the variable fragment of the heavy chain (VHH) and are indicated as nanobodies or sDabs (single chain antibodies). Nanobodies have a molecular size of 15 kDa and can bind with high affinity to different targets. Nanobodies are selected by phage display and can be functionalized by direct conjugation to fluorophores/toxins or nanoparticles.