AT A GLANCE Project Information
Project Title: Multistage-Multifunctional Porous Silicon Nanovectors for Directed Theranostics (Porous Silicon Nanovectors)
Project Objective: To develop and test novel multistage–multifunctional nanovectors based on the fusion between stage-2 nanoporous silicon nanoparticles and stage-1 polymersomes (protocells) for personalized cancer therapy and bioimaging, as well as to understand the cellular interactions between the protocells and the cancer cells for generating relevant preclinical data for translation into the clinic.
Project Duration and Timing: 60 months, January 2013 to December 2017
Project Funding: ERC Starting Grant (EUR 1,499,603)
MAIN CONTACT
Hélder A. Santos Dr. Hélder A. Santos is an Adjunct Professor (Docent) in Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology, an Academy of Finland Research Fellow, University Researcher, Principal Investigator and Group Leader at the Division of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology (University of Helsinki), and the Head of the Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology and Chemical Microsystems (NAMI) Unit.
Contact: Tel: +358-9-19159661 Email:
helder.santos@
helsinki.fi Web: http://www.helsinki. fi/~hsantos/
http://cordis.europa.eu/projects/ rcn/
105963_en.html
“There are many different kinds of cancer, and some existing nanosystems will be effective against one type of cancer but not another. If we can optimise our nanosystem in such a way that that we can tailor it precisely for each type of cancer, that would be an ideal situation.” Although the work in this project is focused on the use of these nanomaterials for cancer and immunotherapy,
they have potential
applications in many other therapeutic settings, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. In the world of pharmacology, the
processes by which a pharmaceutical compound is processed are known as its ADME properties, an acronym describing the route that a drug takes through the body: absorption, distribution, metabolism, and finally excretion. While Santos’ group are working very specifically on the distribution of compounds into the body, his colleague at the University of Helsinki is focused mainly on the aspect of metabolism. Dr Tiina Sikanen’s chemical microsystems
group has the main objective of developing new tools for chemical analysis of drug metabolites in urine and other various in vitro systems. They are developing highly sensitive biochemical microsystems using microfabrication techniques more commonly associated with the semiconductor industry. “The segregation
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“You can think of the whole nanosystem almost like a smart machine that has been designed to carry out a very specific ‘search and destroy’ function inside the body”
instruments that allows the creation of
Santos’ porous nanocarriers, although they work at very different scales. By using miniaturised analytical
instruments, Sikanen hopes to be able to create what is known as a ‘laboratory on a
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techniques we utilise are exactly the same ones used for transistors and small electrical components in mobile phones and computers, but used instead to create miniaturised
analytical chemistry
instruments,” explains Sikanen. Interestingly, it is the same microfabrication techniques used by Sikanen to bring about the miniaturisation of analytical
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