Systemic delivery of drugs is the preferred therapeutic approach for the treatment of many types of cancers, especially to downstage the disease prior to resection, or as adjuvant following resection. However, conventional drug delivery systems neither discriminate between cancer and normal cells nor eliminate the risk of cancer recurrence. We designed nanoparticles that can provide selective chemotherapy uptake in cancer cells through receptor-mediated endocytosis (RME), without activating the associated signalling-pathway or being uptaken by healthy cells. We further show that these nanoparticles can be crosslinked into an injectable hydrogel that coats the tumour and locally releases drugs in a controlled- and selective-manner, resulting in significant tumour shrinkage in a tumour-bearing mouse model and prevention of cancer recurrence. We further designed materials that provide local combination therapy—drug release-, gene therapy- and thermal ablation— while leveraging multiple biological mechanisms to treat cancer. Our approach can be used to treat a range of cancer types and potentially to improve outcomes while minimizing side-effects. New therapeutic strategies for cancer therapy and the employment of diverse administration routes will provide the scientific, pharmaceutical and clinical communities with unprecedented opportunities for the development of new clinically-relevant cancer therapies.<br/>

Multifunctional biomaterials for on-demand cancer therapy

254th National Meeting (2017)

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