Andreas Bernkop-Schnürch

Andreas Bernkop-Schnürch (born in Klagenfurt, December 6, 1965) is an Austrian scientist and entrepreneur.

He is Head of the Department of Pharmaceutical Technology in the Institute of Pharmacy at the University of Innsbruck.

His research centers on the areas of drug delivery, dosage forms, controlled release, bionanotechnology, polymer engineering and tissue engineering.

He was educated in pharmacy and in microbiology and genetics at the University of Vienna, finishing his doctorate in 1994.

From 1994 to 1999, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Pharmacy, University of Vienna.

In 1999, he applied to qualify as a professor by receiving the "venia docendi" in pharmaceutical technology.

He is the inventor of several technologies, such as thiolated polymers, for which he coined the name thiomers in 2000, and phosphatase triggered charge-converting nanoparticles for mucosal drug delivery.

He introduced thiolated polysaccharides as new biopolymers for tissue engineering at the 4th Central European Symposium on Pharmaceutical Technology in Vienna 2001, resulting in numerous products containing thiomers such as thiolated chitosans or thiolated hyaluronic acid.

The thiomer-technology also contributed to the development of thiolated nanoparticles that are used as carriers for drug delivery, as diagnostics, and as biosensorics.

Since 2003, he has held the chair in pharmaceutical technology at the University of Innsbruck, heading the Department of Pharmaceutical Technology.

From 2006 to 2013, he served as dean of the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy.

In 2022, he was a visiting professor at the University of Bari Aldo Moro.

He has been a member of the senate of the University of Innsbruck since 2021.

Andreas Bernkop-Schnürch is known for his research on drug delivery systems, multifunctional polymers, and tissue engineering.

He invented and pioneered thiolated polymers – thiomers – as a new generation of bio- and mucoadhesive polymers forming disulfide bonds with cysteine-rich subdomains of endogenous proteins, such as mucus glycoproteins or keratins.

Various medicines based on thiomers have already successfully passed clinical trials and first products for purposes such as treatment of dry eye syndrome have already reached the global pharmaceutical market.

He has been on the scientific advisory board of the Nicotine Science Center of Denmark since 2014.

Likely the smallest thiolated nanocarriers for drug delivery are thiolated cyclodextrins, which he introduced in 2015,

providing in particular a prolonged residence time on mucosal membranes, exhibiting permeation enhancing as well as efflux pump inhibiting properties, and improving cellular uptake.

Furthermore, Andreas Bernkop-Schnürch pioneered charge-converting nanoparticles for mucosal drug delivery utilizing the membrane bound enzyme Alkaline phosphatase to trigger a shift in zeta potential from negative to positive directly at the epithelium.

Cationic nanoparticles are more efficiently taken up by epithelial cells than anionic ones.

However, they do not reach epithelial cells, as they are immobilized via ionic interactions in mucus, displaying an anionic charge because of sialic acid substructures.

Charge-converting nanoparticles address this so-called ‘polycation dilemma’ by converting their surface charge to positive at the cellular membrane.

Moreover, Andreas Bernkop-Schnürch contributed basic knowledge to the field of self-emulsifying drug delivery systems (SEDDS) for mucosal delivery of macromolecular drugs.

Andreas Bernkop-Schnürch has been awarded more than 20 national and international awards.

These include:

Andreas Bernkop-Schnürch is author of over 500 research articles and reviews, as well as editor and (co-)author of several books.

From 2016 to 2018, he served as a member of the Scientific Committee of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) of the European Union in Brussels, giving advice on scientific priorities to be included in the Strategic Research Agenda for Horizon 2020.

He is a member of the editorial board of numerous pharmaceutical journals, including the International Journal of Pharmaceutics, the Journal of Drug Delivery Science and Technology, Scientia Pharmaceutica, Drug Development and Industrial Pharmacy, and the European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutis.

Andreas Bernkop-Schnürch is the founder of Thiomatrix Forschungs- und Beratungs GmbH, Mucobiomer Biotechnologische Forschungs- und Entwicklungs GmbH (now part of the Croma-Pharma GmbH) and Green River Polymers Forschungs und Entwicklungs GmbH.

He has been listed as a Highly Cited Researcher of the Institute of Scientific Information since 2022.

Andreas Bernkop-Schnürch comes from an Austrian apothecary family.