Michele Schlich

Michele Schlich is an affiliated researcher in the Nanotechnology for Precision Medicine laboratory at Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, and post doc at the University of Cagliari. His research interests focus on the design, production and characterization of nanocarriers for small molecules and nucleic acid delivery. He is currently working on the formulation of lipid-based nanoparticles for oligonucleotides and proteins delivery, exploring their application for the treatment of brain cancer and for vaccination, respectively. Dr Schlich obtained his PhD in Life, Environmental and Drug Sciences at the University of Cagliari in April 2017, defending a thesis on Liposomes for siRNA and Small Molecule Delivery. During his PhD, he worked on the development of liposome and cyclodextrin-based nanocarriers encapsulating small interfering RNA against neurodegeneration and brain cancer. To this aim, he gained experience in the surface modification of nanoparticles with antibodies, peptides and small molecules to produce targeted systems. His research interests also involve the formulation of nanocrystal suspensions to increase the dermal and transdermal bioavailability of poorly soluble drugs, as well as the combination of novel nanomedicines with medical devices (eg. needle-free jet injectors) to improve safety and efficacy. As a part of his training, dr Schlich has been a visiting researcher at the School of Pharmacy of the University College Cork (2015-2016), working on non-viral vectors for siRNA delivery and their biological testing, and a visiting student at the Department of Organic Chemistry of the Semmelweis University, Budapest (2011-2012).