20.109(F11): Jamal Elkhader and Colin Beckwitt

Brief project overview

Biodegradable nano-particles delivering cancer therapy specifically to prostate tumors via binding to a receptor specific to those cells. This research is occurring in the Langer lab so assistance and resources for this project will be readily available and sufficient background material can be found in these articles to provide the knowledge necessary to understand our project. Will talk about applying this procedure to other types of cancer cells and other cells in general - for instance, treating autoimmune disease victims with a nanoparticle bound to EGF that specifically targets bone marrow. These future ideas for this project will have similar methods to those discussed in previous work. It is predicted that if this experiment succeeds, this technique will be able to be applied to targeted drug therapy for a plethora of diseases. If this experiment fails, we will still have prostate tumor treatment and other treatment fields can be explored.

Background/References:

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/nanoparticle-chemotherapy-1005.html

This article talked about developing a nano-particle to deliver precise doses of drugs to cancer cells. One of the benefits to using nano-particles over more common treatments, such as chemotherapy, is their reduced cytotoxicity to normal cells. They developed a new technique called "Drug polymer blending" to generate a controlled ratio of drug to particle allowing for a personalized treatment regimen.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/09/30/1011368107.full.pdf+html

This is the reference paper to which the summary in the previous article refers.

http://web.mit.edu/press/2011/cancer-particles.html

Particles proven to work in vitro and experiments are being commenced in vivo in mice. Particles were shown to have improved durability in the blood as compared to the naked drug.

http://www.pnas.org/content/105/45/17356

This article proved the usefulness of these nano-particles as the authors were able to deliver a lethal dose of cisplatin specifically to prostate cancer cells via complexion with these particles.