Where Ideas Grow
Bruno Sarmento
Group leader

Bruno Sarmento is Principal Investigator, Group Leader and member of the Board of Directors at Institute for Research and Innovation in Health (i3S), University of Porto (UP), and Invited Associate Professor at Instituto Universitário de Ciências da Saúde (IUCS), Portugal. He graduated in Pharmaceutical Sciences at UP in 2002 and completed a PhD in Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology at UP in 2007, in collaboration with Queen’s University (CA), University of Copenhagen (DK) and University of Santiago de Compostela (ES). From 2007 to 2012 he held a Post-Doc position at UP, in collaboration with the University of Copenhagen. In 2008 he was appointed Assistant Professor at IUCS. He also co-founded Inovapotek in 2008, and is member of its advisory board. In 2012 he became Associated Researcher at INEB, where established an independent team. He was appointed as Assistant Researched at INEB/i3S in 2016, and Principal Investigator in 2019. He was Visiting Professor at UniOeste (BR) between 2015-2017 and  at Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine between 2022-2024 (CH).

He has supervised/co-supervised 18 Post-Docs, 55 PhD students, 25 mobility/foreigner PhD students, 40 MSc students and 18 researcher assistants. He attracted direct competitive funding worth more than 25 M€, at national and international levels. His current research is focused on the development of functionalized nanomedicines and their application in the pharmaceutical and biomedical fields. In particular, nanoformulations of biopharmaceutical drugs with interest in diabetes, cancer and infectious diseases. He has also specialized in mucosal tissue engineering models to validate functionalized nanomedicines and to perform in vitro/in vivo correlation. He published 500 papers in international journals (total citations in Scopus 21000; H-index 74 and in GoogleScholar 27000; H-index 85), 58 book chapters and more than 400 proceedings. He edited 6 books, participated in more than 60 invited/selected talks in national and international meetings and was awarded several distinctions. He is editor of European Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, and member of the Editorial Advisory Board of several international journals, including the 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 area of expertise, and for international funding agencies as FNRS (BE), FWO(BE), Inserm (FR), CNCS (RO), FCT (PT), NSC (PL), ANR (FR), CNPq (BR) and European Commission. 

Bruno Sarmento was the first Chair of the Nanomedicine and Nanoscale Delivery Focus Group of the Controlled Release Society (CRS) and is now Director-at-Large of CRS and member of CRS College of Fellows. In addition to being a partner in several research projects, he has been PI of competitively funded projects (FCT, Gilead and CESPU), bilateral collaborative projects between Portugal (FCT) and foreigner funding agencies as well as partner of several European projects funded by European Commission.

Selected Publications

Carvalho A.M., Bansal R., Barrias C.C., Sarmento B.,
The Material World of 3D-Bioprinted and Microfluidic-Chip Models of Human Liver Fibrosis. Advanced Materials36(2):, 2024. [Journal: Review] [IF: 29,4 (*)]
DOI: 10.1002/adma.202307673 SCOPUS: 85177197944.


Pinto S., Hosseini M., Buckley S.T., Yin W., Garousi J., Gräslund T., van Ijzendoorn S., Santos H.A., Sarmento B.,
Nanoparticles targeting the intestinal Fc receptor enhance intestinal cellular trafficking of semaglutide. Journal of Controlled Release366:621-636, 2024. [Journal: Article] [IF: 10,8 (*)]
DOI: 10.1016/j.jconrel.2024.01.015 SCOPUS: 85182731048.


Martins C., Araújo M., Malfanti A., Pacheco C., Smith S.J., Ucakar B., Rahman R., Aylott J.W., Préat V., Sarmento B.,
Stimuli-Responsive Multifunctional Nanomedicine for Enhanced Glioblastoma Chemotherapy Augments Multistage Blood-to-Brain Trafficking and Tumor Targeting. Small19(22):, 2023. [Journal: Article] [CI: 5] [IF: 13,3 (*)]
DOI: 10.1002/smll.202300029 SCOPUS: 85149319530.


Moura R.P., Carvalho E.D., Martins C., des Rieux A., Pêgo A.P., Sarmento B.,
Functionalized retinoic acid lipid nanocapsules promotes a two-front attack on inflammation and lack of demyelination on neurodegenerative disorders. Journal of Controlled Release358:43-58, 2023. [Journal: Article] [CI: 2] [IF: 10,8 (*)]
DOI: 10.1016/j.jconrel.2023.04.034 SCOPUS: 85153574869.


Martins C., Pacheco C., Moreira-Barbosa C., Marques-Magalhães Â., Dias S., Araújo M., Oliveira M.J., Sarmento B.,
Glioblastoma immuno-endothelial multicellular microtissue as a 3D in vitro evaluation tool of anti-cancer nano-therapeutics. Journal of Controlled Release353:77-95, 2023. [Journal: Article] [CI: 2] [IF: 10,8 (*)]
DOI: 10.1016/j.jconrel.2022.11.024 SCOPUS: 85143777496.


Macedo M.H., Barros A.S., Martínez E., Barrias C.C., Sarmento B.,
All layers matter: Innovative three-dimensional epithelium-stroma-endothelium intestinal model for reliable permeability outcomes. Journal of Controlled Release341:414-430, 2022. [Journal: Article] [CI: 9] [IF: 10,8]
DOI: 10.1016/j.jconrel.2021.11.048 SCOPUS: 85120638989.


Martins J.P., Figueiredo P., Wang S., Espo E., Celi E., Martins B., Kemell M., Moslova K., Mäkilä E., Salonen J., Kostiainen M.A., Celia C., Cerullo V., Viitala T., Sarmento B., Hirvonen J., Santos H.A.,
Neonatal Fc receptor-targeted lignin-encapsulated porous silicon nanoparticles for enhanced cellular interactions and insulin permeation across the intestinal epithelium. Bioactive Materials9:299-315, 2022. [Journal: Article] [CI: 21] [IF: 18,9]
DOI: 10.1016/j.bioactmat.2021.08.007 SCOPUS: 85112562867.


Almeida A., Castro F., Resende C., Lúcio M., Schwartz S., Sarmento B.,
Oral delivery of camptothecin-loaded multifunctional chitosan-based micelles is effective in reduce colorectal cancer. Journal of Controlled Release349:731-743, 2022. [Journal: Article] [CI: 12] [IF: 10,8]
DOI: 10.1016/j.jconrel.2022.07.029 SCOPUS: 85135197951.


Pacheco C., Baltazar F., Costa B.M., Sarmento B.,
Bringing vascularization into glioblastoma in vitro models. Trends in Molecular Medicine28(2):84-86, 2022. [Journal: Short Survey] [CI: 2] [IF: 13,6]
DOI: 10.1016/j.molmed.2021.11.001 SCOPUS: 85120909427.


Leong H.S., Butler K.S., Brinker C.J., Azzawi M., Conlan S., Dufés C., Owen A., Rannard S., Scott C., Chen C., Dobrovolskaia M.A., Kozlov S.V., Prina-Mello A., Schmid R., Wick P., Caputo F., Boisseau P., Crist R.M., McNeil S.E., Fadeel B., Tran L., Hansen S.F., Hartmann N.B., Clausen L.P.W., Skjolding L.M., Baun A., Ågerstrand M., Gu Z., Lamprou D.A., Hoskins C., Huang L., Song W., Cao H., Liu X., Jandt K.D., Jiang W., Kim B.Y.S., Wheeler K.E., Chetwynd A.J., Lynch I., Moghimi S.M., Nel A., Xia T., Weiss P.S., Sarmento B., das Neves J., Santos H.A., Santos L., Mitragotri S., Little S., Peer D., Amiji M.M., Alonso M.J., Petri-Fink A., Balog S., Lee A., Drasler B., Rothen-Rutishauser B., Wilhelm S., Acar H., Harrison R.G., Mao C., Mukherjee P., Ramesh R., McNally L.R., Busatto S., Wolfram J., Bergese P., Ferrari M., Fang R.H., Zhang L., Zheng J., Peng C., Du B., Yu M., Charron D.M., Zheng G., Pastore C.,
On the issue of transparency and reproducibility in nanomedicine. Nature Nanotechnology14(7):629-635, 2019. [Journal: Letter] [CI: 142] [IF: 31,5]
DOI: 10.1038/s41565-019-0496-9 SCOPUS: 85069268486.