The estimated cancer incidence is about 1.8 million in the US in 2020 with over 600,000 deaths. The majority of cancer mortality comes from metastatic diseases that are treated with systemic therapies. Significant advances in systemic cancer therapies such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy and small molecule inhibitors have been made over the past several decades that have improved patient outcomes. However, these systemic therapies suffer from a lack of tumor specificity that significantly reduces their efficacy and causes multiple and severe side effects from collateral damage of normal cells, including but not limited to hair loss, nausea, fatigue, diarrhea and nerve damage. Therefore, there...

Read More

The estimated cancer incidence is about 1.8 million in the US in 2020 with over 600,000 deaths. The majority of cancer mortality comes from metastatic diseases that are treated with systemic therapies. Significant advances in systemic cancer therapies such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy and small molecule inhibitors have been made over the past several decades that have improved patient outcomes. However, these systemic therapies suffer from a lack of tumor specificity that significantly reduces their efficacy and causes multiple and severe side effects from collateral damage of normal cells, including but not limited to hair loss, nausea, fatigue, diarrhea and nerve damage. Therefore, there is a critical need to develop novel cancer-specific drug delivery techniques. To reach the tumors while avoiding normal organ side effects, we will develop and test a cell-based nanoparticle system, which will ensure a tumor site/cancer cell specific approach rather than a systemic one, resulting in delivery of drugs to cancer cells and tumors, enhancing the efficacy of cancer therapy. We will utilize proteins (antigens) expressed only by the tumor cells to perform targeted delivery of anti-cancer drugs (like chemotherapy, immunotherapy and small molecule inhibitors) directly to the tumor sites. Leveraging available technology to generate chimeric antigen receptor T cells (CAR-T) that have the ability to target a specific tumor antigen, we will generate an anti-cancer drug filled polymer nanoparticle coated with CAR T-cell membrane. The CAR-T membrane will work as a homing device to bring the nanoparticle containing the drug payload to the primary and metastatic sites of the tumor resulting in maximum tumor killing with minimal normal cell damage.

Read Less