Catalysis for Cancer Treatment.

Introduction

The increased incidence and mortality of tumors that do not respond to standard of care or other targeted therapies is a major challenge in the clinical management of these cancer patients. In order to provide innovative therapeutic avenues for treatment-refractory patients, it is urgent to develop novel mechanisms of anticancer drug modes of action that will overcome the drawbacks of current therapies.

Project Overview

In Cat4CanCenter, we will merge the research fields of metal-based catalysis for drug development and innovative delivery routes with cancer biology and immunology. This will be applied to one of the deadliest cancers, glioblastoma (GBM), a fatal primary brain tumor for which no curative therapy exists, due to its location within the brain parenchyma and complex tumor microenvironment.

Challenges in Treatment

Many potential drugs have failed in the clinic due to their inherent toxicity and off-target side effects, which add to the challenges in reaching the protected brain site. Recently, innovative catalyst design has enabled synthetic transformations in the presence of biological molecules.

Innovative Approaches

In Cat4CanCenter, we will develop four innovative approaches to treat GBM. This new methodology requires the design of cage-protected catalysts that will be delivered to targeted cell types using advanced lipid nanoparticle technology. The catalysts will convert nontoxic prodrugs into active drugs within the GBM bulk.

Strategy and Goals

Our groundbreaking strategy aims for successful therapies to treat glioblastoma by developing complementary approaches to therapeutically tackle the complexity of this disease. The new strategies, catalysts, and prodrugs will be explored in this project.

Collaborative Program

In this project, we explore a new avenue to treat glioblastoma, which is the most difficult cancer to target. In a collaborative program, we develop biomimetic transition metal catalysts (key expertise 1) that will be delivered using smart strategies such as lipid nanoparticles (key expertise 2) to generate cancer drugs in vivo. The glioblastoma biology will be studied in detail (key expertise 3).