Cancer is one of the world’s leading causes of death.
Breast cancer represents the most common type in women, according to the World Health Organization (Globocan) and despite all the studies and the recent advancements in diagnosis and therapy it remains an important cause of mortality among women around the world.
Generally, a major concern of nowadays cancer treatment techniques is the non-targeted distribution of therapeutic agents throughout the body. Most conventional anticancer agents do not distinguish normal cells and cancer cells consequently.
The project aims to generate new knowledge on the development of dynamic self-assembled nanocarriers for targeted drug delivery with applications in medical sciences.
The NANOHER2RESTORE project therefore proposes to apply modular supramolecular assembly consisting of pH sensitive units, recognition moieties and functional molecules to build up therapeutic entities sensitive to the tumour microenvironment and to investigate mechanisms for targeted breast cancer treatment in vitro and in vivo.
The key to meeting this objective is the interdisciplinary and international consortium that was created by bringing together three university research groups with different but very complementary research approaches for the study and preparation of the pH-dependent nanoassemblies for targeted breast cancer treatment.
The consortium members have the knowledge, experience and all the necessary “tool boxes” to achieve the ambitious scientific goals of the proposal and demonstrates a clear added value by combining diverse proved expertise in the fields of synthetic organic chemistry, nanotechnology, molecular and cell biology.
O1. Produce and characterize a pH-dependent micellar assembly of functionalized copolymer blocks and targeted delivery of AXL inhibitor to target Her positive breast cancer tumors.
O2. Produce a range of complex functionalized and loaded nanostructured assemblies with different pH stability.