Interview with Gert Storm.

Q Can you update us on your research group’s current work? At the moment, I am occupying three positions in The Netherlands. For 60% of my time I am at the Utrecht University (Utrecht, The Netherlands), for 20% at the University Medical Centre Utrecht hospital (UMCU; Utrecht, The Netherlands), and the other 20% I am at the University of Twente (Enschede, The Netherlands), in the east of the country. The common denominator for these three research groups is ‘targeted nanomedicine’, and together they provide an excellent environment for translational drug-targeting research. All three research teams are well connected, provide an excellent ‘from bench-to-clinic’ infrastructure, but also have their own identity. Let us start with the Utrecht University (Department of Pharmaceutics), which was for the biggest part of my scientific life and still is my main employer. My main focus has always been on drug targeting, with liposomes designed for this purpose still being popular in my research. However, over the years the targeted drug-delivery system (DDS) arsenal has been broadened considerably, with systems based on biodegradable polymers, peptides and proteins getting much attention, in close collaboration with my colleague Professor Hennink, a synthetic chemist and more of a ‘pharmaceutical technologist’, whereas I studied biology and developed more as a ‘biopharmacist’. For a long time, together with the recently retired Professor Crommelin, the ‘pharmacist’, we have operated as a fruitful team covering the multidisciplinary aspects of advanced drug-delivery research. A current vital part of our research is the development of triggered release systems. We try to do that by using thermosensitive DDS formulations in combination with ultrasound technology that can heat up tissues in vivo. Triggered release is a very important issue because many targeted nanomedicines often face the problem that if they arrive at the target site the drug is still within the nanocarrier and is not being released efficiently. Triggered release approaches aim to making the drug therapeutically available within the target site, and should lead to better therapeutic efficacy. In close collaboration with the UMCU hospital, a large project is currently in progress studying the clinical application of MRI-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound (MRg-HIFU) in combination with a Gert Storm