Nanomaterial enhanced immunotherapy for tumor treatment.

The main aim of this C3 application is to facilitate the clinical translation of modern nanotechnology to explore new horizons in the treatment of cancer, continuing from recent groundbreaking results that demonstrated full tumor remission and lack of tumor relapse or metastasis in different murine tumor models. The unique ability of these nanomaterials (NMs), with their demonstrated activities against multidrug-resistant tumors and tumor initiating cells (TICs) as wellas their potent induction of immunogenic cell death (ICD) and ability to act as an adjuvant renders these particles perfectly suited to tackle some of the major issues remaining in tumor therapy. The current C3 aims at 1) enhancing GMP-certified production capacity of the nanoparticles of interest along with validation 2) of the nanoparticles combined with different immunotherapy regimens and 3) in different tumor models of interest. Along with the KUL LRD and external CROs paid through a Wellcome fund, appropriate tumor models and immunotherapy regimens have been defined, a business plan is being set up, and we are liaising with industrial partners. Together with clinical partners, we can then pave the way to incorporate this technology in the clinical pipeline of immunotherapy studies.

Keywords:nanomedicine, nanomaterials, immunogenic cell death, cancer therapy

Disciplines:Medical nanotechnology