CRS Labs Around the World December 2025 - Nanomedicines and Translational Drug Delivery group at i3S–University of Porto

Bruno Sarmento is a Principal Investigator, Leader of the Nanomedicines and Translational Drug Delivery group, and member of the Board of Directors at i3S – Institute for Research and Innovation in Health, University of Porto (UP). He is also an Invited Associate Professor at Instituto Universitário de Ciências da Saúde (IUCS), Portugal.

Bruno Sarmento graduated in Pharmaceutical Sciences at UP in 2002 and earned his PhD in Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology in 2007, in collaboration with Queen’s University (Canada), University of Copenhagen (Denmark), and University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain). From 2007 to 2012, he held a postdoctoral position at UP in collaboration with Copenhagen and was appointed Assistant Professor at IUCS in 2008. The same year, he co-founded Inovapotek, where he continues to serve on the advisory board.

In 2012, Bruno Sarmento became an Associated Researcher at INEB, where he established his independent research team. He was appointed Assistant Researcher at INEB/i3S in 2016 and Principal Investigator in 2019. He has also been a Visiting Professor at UniOeste (Brazil, 2015–2017) and Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine (China, 2022–2024).

Bruno Sarmento has supervised and co-supervised more than 150 researchers, including postdocs, PhD and MSc students, and research assistants. He has attracted direct competitive funding worth more than €25M (e.g., la Caixa Foundation, Crohn's & Colitis Foundation, FCT, Gilead, EU). His current research focuses on functionalized nanomedicines for applications in diabetes cancer and infectious diseases, and on 3D in vitro multicompartmental models as reliable preclinical platforms for drug and nanomedicine screening. Bruno Sarmento has published over 540 papers, 60 book chapters, and edited 6 books (35000 citations; H-index 95). He has given more than 60 invited talks worldwide and received multiple distinctions.

Bruno Sarmento is Editor of the European Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, serves on editorial boards of leading journals including Journal of Controlled Release, Drug Delivery and Translational Research, Expert Opinion on Drug Delivery and Smart Materials in Medicine. He is referee for top-ranked journals in his areas of expertise, and for international funding agencies such as FNRS (BE), FWO(BE), Inserm (FR), CNCS (RO), FCT (PT), NSC (PL), ANR (FR), CNPq (BR) and European Commission.

Bruno Sarmento has played a leading role in the Controlled Release Society (CRS), serving as the first Chair of the Nanomedicine and Nanoscale Delivery Focus Group, Director-at-Large, Secretary, and now President-elect, and is a member of both the CRS and AIMBE College of Fellows. 

The Nanomedicines and Translational Drug Delivery (NTDD) group at i3S is dedicated to advancing drug delivery science, with a strong emphasis on nanotechnology and its transformative potential in pharmaceutical and biomedical applications. Our mission is to engineer next-generation nanomedicines by identifying new biological targets, designing functional ligands, and developing tailored nanoplatforms to deliver therapeutic molecules for cancer, diabetes, infection, and inflammatory diseases.

Our work brings together expertise in drug delivery, nanomedicine, targeted nanoparticles, multifunctional systems, 3D cellular models, mucosal delivery, biopharmaceuticals, and disease-focused innovation. Specific research areas include:

• Advanced biomaterials: We design, characterize and validate functionalized biomaterials for drug delivery, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine. Our efforts center on developing nanosystems with active ligand moieties capable of targeting specific biological receptors.
• Scalable nanofabrication: We create multifunctional nanoparticles with efficient, receptor-targeting biofunctional groups using scalable and translatable nanofabrication methods. Our group has developed innovative nanoformulations for small molecules, biomacromolecules, and biopharmaceuticals.
• Reliable 3D cell-based models: We build advanced 3D in vitro models and organ-on-a-chip platforms that mimic healthy and diseased tissues, specifically in the context of intestinal, pulmonary, and tumor environments. These systems enable mechanistic insights into drug and nanoparticle absorption and support strong in vitro-in vivo correlations.

At i3S, the NTDD group embraces a deeply transdisciplinary approach, building strong collaborations, joint supervision initiatives, and shared research projects. We actively pursue international partnerships to position i3S at the forefront of global research, while also delivering cutting-edge technologies to biomedical and pharmaceutical companies. Our work has already produced patent-protected nanotechnology solutions with potential for clinical testing, supported by an extensive network of national and international collaborators.

Relevant publications:

• Coelho, D., Estêvão, D., Oliveira, M. J., & Sarmento, B. (2025). Radioresistance in rectal cancer: can nanoparticles turn the tide?. Molecular Cancer, 24, 35.
• Siquenique, S., Ackerman, S., Schroeder, A., & Sarmento, B. (2025). Bioengineering lipid-based synthetic cells for therapeutic protein delivery. Trends in Biotechnology, 43, 348-363. 
• Pacheco, C., de Dios, O., Ramiréz-González, M. A., Martins, C., Fialho, S. L., Baltazar, F., Costa, B. M., Sánchez-Gómez, P. & Sarmento, B. (2025). Multimodal nanoparticles co-delivering bevacizumab and dichloroacetate for dual targeting of neoangiogenesis and hyperglycolysis in glioblastoma treatment. Journal of Controlled Release, 384, 113931.
• Almeida, H., Cristelo, C., Viegas, J., Traverso, G., Sarmento, B., & das Neves, J. (2025). Gastrointestinal distribution of engineered biodegradable urease-powered nanomotors. Acta Biomaterialia, 207, 546-559.
• Ferreira, C., Sarmento, B., & Martins, C. (2025). In vitro models of the interplay between glioblastoma and blood-brain barrier for stratifying drug efficacy. Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews, 227, 115702.
• Almeida, H., Traverso, G., Sarmento, B., & das Neves, J. (2024). Nanoscale anisotropy for biomedical applications. Nature Reviews Bioengineering, 2, 609-625.
• Carvalho, A. M., Bansal, R., Barrias, C. C., & Sarmento, B. (2024). The Material World of 3D‐Bioprinted and Microfluidic‐Chip Models of Human Liver Fibrosis. Advanced Materials, 36, 2307673.
• Pinto, S., Viegas, J., Cristelo, C., Pacheco, C., Barros, S., Buckley, S. T., ... & Sarmento, B. (2024). Bioengineered nanomedicines targeting the intestinal fc receptor achieve the improved glucoregulatory effect of semaglutide in a type 2 diabetic mice model. ACS Nano, 18, 28406-28424.
• Viegas, J., Costa, S., Dias, S., Pereira, C. L., & Sarmento, B. (2024). Patient‐Derived Melanoma Immune‐Tumoroids as a Platform for Precise High throughput Drug Screening. Advanced Science, 11, 2408707.
• Barros, A. S., Pinto, S., Viegas, J., Martins, C., Almeida, H., Alves, I., Pinho, S., Nunes, R., Harris, A. & Sarmento, B. (2024). Orally Delivered Stimulus‐Sensitive Nanomedicine to Harness Teduglutide Efficacy in Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Small, 20, 2402502.
• Costa, S., Rodrigues, J., Vieira, C., Dias, S., Viegas, J., Castro, F., Sarmento, B. & Pereira, C. L. (2024). Advancing osteosarcoma 3D modeling in vitro for novel tumor microenvironment-targeted therapies development. Journal of Controlled Release, 376, 1068-1085.
• Martins, C., Araújo, M., Malfanti, A., Pacheco, C., Smith, S. J., Ucakar, B., Rahman, R., Aylott, J. W., Préat, V. & Sarmento, B. (2023). Stimuli‐responsive multifunctional nanomedicine for enhanced glioblastoma chemotherapy augments multistage blood‐to‐brain trafficking and tumor targeting. Small, 19, 2300029.