Quantifying biological heterogeneity in nano-engineered particle-cell interaction experiments

Abstract

Nano-engineered particles are a promising tool for medical diagnostics, biomedical imaging and targeted drug delivery. Fundamental to the assessment of particle performance are in vitro particle-cell interaction experiments. These experiments can be summarized with key parameters that facilitate objective comparisons across various cell and particle pairs, such as the particle-cell association rate. Previous studies often focus on point estimates of such parameters and neglect heterogeneity in routine measurements. In this study, we develop an ordinary differential equation-based mechanistic mathematical model that incorporates and exploits the heterogeneity in routine measurements. Connecti..