Current cancer chemotherapy treatments offer patients limited curative benefit as a) these need to be delivered at a minimised dose to avoid noxious or fatal side effects and b) tumour cells develop over time drug resistance resulting in drugs not having any effect on the cancerous cells anymore. In order to overcome this, drugs could be encapsulated in nanocarriers transporting to and then releasing the medicine within the tumour cells.
We will implement a novel nanoparticle-based, cancer-specific drug delivery system, allowing for controlled release upon light irradiation (PCInano). This will be implemented by parallel administration of the PCInano nanocarriers together with the light-activated agent, (photosensitiser, PS). Our nano constructs are expected to remain sequestered in the cell’s endocytic vesicles until irradiated. Upon light activation, the membrane-resident PS will rupture the endocytic vesicles and the nanocarriers’ full drug payload will be released within the target cells, free to engage vital intracellular targets.
PCInano will provide validation of the proposed technology in vitro and in vivo, primarily in difficult to cure ovarian cancer models because of the relevance to five selected drugs.
We expect the proposed technology to mature into a cost-effective and once-off cancer-specific treatment that has the potential to render the patient primary-disease free within a short time.
