Enhancing Human Skin Penetration with Biodegradable Enzymatic Nanomotors

Taco Waaijman – Technician, Amsterdam UMC; Inés Macías Tarrío – PhD Student, IBEC; Cristián Huck Iriart – Postdoctoral Researcher, ALBA Synchrotron; Tiziana Russo – PhD Student, IBEC; César Rodríguez-Emmenegger – PI, IBEC; Jasper J Koning – Postdoctoral Researcher, Amsterdam UMC; Samuel Sánchez Ordóñez – PI, IBEC

Introduction:

The skin is the body’s primary biological barrier.¹ Although essential for protection, this barrier function limits the efficacy of transdermal drug delivery, as most topically applied compounds fail to reach deeper skin layers at therapeutically relevant concentrations.² Existing approaches often rely on physical disruption of the barrier, which can cause undesirable side effects.³ Moreover, many prior studies have been conducted in murine models, which do not accurately recapitulate human skin physiology, hindering the translation to humans.⁴ Here, we present an alternative approach using enzymatically powered nanomotors tested in a human reconstructed skin model.