Tumor-Targeted Nanocarriers for Dual-Selective Therapy of Chemoresistant Neuroblastoma
Neuroblastoma remains the deadliest solid tumor of childhood. A genetic alteration found in a large number of high-risk cases makes it particularly challenging, and existing therapies still fail to cure over half of these patients. New treatment strategies, both safe and effective against this aggressive form of the disease are, therefore, urgently needed. A drug delivery strategy using tumor targeted nanocarriers that will be evaluated and optimized by our team in this project is designed to address this need. By demonstrating feasibility and optimizing the performance of the nanocarriers selectively delivering therapy to drug-resistant tumors and restoring their responsiveness, this project can pave the way to a new and effective approach for treating patients with refractory disease currently lacking effective treatment options. The enhanced tumor selectivity of the nanocarrier-based delivery strategy can lead to meaningful improvements in therapeutic outcomes without causing major adverse reactions often seen with traditional chemotherapy.
Project Goals
In this project, we will optimize our drug delivery strategy using nanocarriers designed to overcome drug resistance and to provide lasting therapeutic responses, while protecting healthy organs from exposure to toxic drug levels. These studies will allow usto establish its effectiveness in clinically relevant models of newly diagnosed and recurrent forms of aggressive neuroblastoma. Our ultimate goal isto bring this promising new therapy to pediatric patients with high-risk neuroblastoma and to extend it to other drug-resistant cancersin children.
