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EPSRC IRC in Targeted Delivery for Hard-to-Treat Cancers

 

A new partnership with the University of Strathclyde will enable biological testing of lead materials featured in the development of high-capacity vehicles for the targeted delivery of pharmaceutical compounds to enhance drug efficacy in the treatment of pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic cancer, along with mesothelioma and glioblastoma (a brain cancer), is one of the three hard-to-treat cancers in the sights of the IRC programme. Part of the work being undertaken by the IRC and the University of Strathclyde is the formulation of chemotherapies using macromolecular systems to enhance drug efficacy. The planned studies are required to confirm efficacy enhancement, assess the toxicology and biodistribution to inform the likelihood of successful translation to the clinic.

I am thrilled to be joining the ICR team working in the clinical translation of the high-capacity vehicles produced. This area is at the cutting edge of formulation technology and the experiments in my laboratory will help push the vehicles further down the developmental pathway towards patients Dr Clare Hoskins, Reader in Bionanotechnology, University of Strathclyde

One of the main aims of the IRC is clinical translation which requires optimisation in pancreatic models of the lead materials.  Dr Clare Hoskins, Reader in Bionanotechnology, in the Department of Pure and Applied Chemistry at the Technology Innovation Centre, at the University of Strathclyde is a leader in cancer nanomedicine development with special interests in stimuli-responsive and intelligent materials for precision pancreatic cancer therapy. The partnership will enable a suite of biological assessments of candidate high-capacity vehicles and significantly enhance the experimental capabilities of the IRC.

Dr Hoskins said: “I am thrilled to be joining the ICR team working in the clinical translation of the high-capacity vehicles produced. This area is at the cutting edge of formulation technology and the experiments in my laboratory will help push the vehicles further down the developmental pathway towards patients.” Dr Hoskins’s research into the use of metallic nanoparticles both in targeted diagnostics and therapeutic treatment of pancreatic cancer is highly synergistic to the IRC programme. The incorporation of metallic particles into these systems would confer them with additional desirable properties such as imaging ability – allowing for real time tracking and fate determination.

The IRC comprises five founding universities, Cambridge, Imperial, UCL, Glasgow and Birmingham alongside several partner institutions.