Iranian nanobiotechnologist Dr. Fahimeh Charbgoo is Alexander von Humboldt guest researcher at DWI

The Iranian scientist Dr. Fahimeh Charbgoo has received a research fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. She works as a guest researcher in the research group of Prof. Dr. Andreas Herrmann. The biochemist and her research will be sponsored for a period of 2 years starting in November 2020. Fahimeh Charbgoo concentrates on the targeted delivery of, for example active pharmaceutical ingredient, with ultrasound triggers using bioinspired building blocks like DNA. This research can be applied in the field of biomedicine, for example in the administration of therapeutic.

Infectious diseases are a growing threat to humanity and are currently the number one cause of disease. Although we can fight these diseases with antibiotics, antiviral drugs, vaccines and new treatments using targeted approaches or bacteriophages, new infections are still appearing.  Excessive use of antibiotics and ineffective treatment are causing multi-antibiotic resistance worldwide and leading to fears of a "post-antibiotic era" in which several bacterial infections will become untreatable.  Accordingly, the development of effective treatment of bacterial diseases and the prevention of antibacterial resistance is urgently needed to stop future outbreaks. Charbgoo's research goal is to provide an antibiotic delivery system that is capable of delivering the therapeutic agent to a desired location at a specific time and with a controllable dosage.

To achieve this, she is focusing on biomimiking materials to provide a fully biocompatible delivery system. She uses DNA molecules to inactivate the antibiotics in a novel approach and reactivate them at the target site using clinically applied methods.

Charbgoo completed her PhD in nanobiotechnology in 2015 at the Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran, Iran. Between 2015 and 2019, she continued her research on targeted drug delivery using hybrid nanomaterials based on biopolymers such as peptide-DNA, lipid-DNA and different nanoparticles including SiNP, AuNP and carbon nanomaterials.

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation enables highly qualified foreign researchers holding doctorates to carry out a research project of their own choice in Germany as a part of a Humboldt Fellowship. The sponsored scientists and scholars choose the respective hosts themselves. The number of Humboldt fellows is therefore an important indicator of international contacts and the reputation of the institution. In addition to Fahimeh Charbgoo, the DWI hosts the Alexander von Humboldt fellows Dr. Mingjun Xuan, who also works in the research group of Andreas Herrmann, but in the field of Macromolecular Materials and Systems, and Dr. Ulvi Karaca, who conducts research in the photochemistry group of Prof. Dr. Stefan Hecht.