Entwicklung und Charakterisierung echogener Liposomen zur Targetierung von ADAM8

This thesis deals with the development and characterization of new, liposomal, nano-scaled vehicles to be used as ultrasound contrast agent. Besides that, the vehicles are used as tumor targeting devices by binding to ADAM8. Size, structure and functionality was closely determined to meet this criteria. Ultrasound contrast ability was optimized by different lipid-compositions and/or manufacturing methods.The intensity of contrast was compared to a comercially available. clinically used contrast agent. For targeting-studies, the vehicles were covalently bound to a targeting-ligand and several binding-studies on different target structures were performed, focussing ADAM8. The lipid-based nanoparticles matched criterias like size, structure, stability, functionality and proved themselves capaple of targeting several targeting-structures, including ADAM8.