Drug delivery systems and breast cancer cells
Annarita STRINGARO (Istituto Superiore di Sanità)
ABSTRACT
Recently, nanomedicine has received increasing attention for its ability to improve the efficacy of cancer therapeutics. Nanosized polymer therapeutic agents offer the advantage of prolonged circulation in the blood stream, targeting to specific sites, improved efficacy and reduced side effects. In this way, local, controlled delivery of the drug will be achieved with the advantage of a high concentration of drug release at the target site while keeping the systemic concentration of the drug low, thus reducing side effects due to bioaccumulation. Various drug delivery systems such as nanoparticles, liposomes, microparticles and implants have been demonstrated to significantly enhance the preventive/therapeutic efficacy of many drugs by increasing their bioavailability and targetability. As these carriers significantly increases the therapeutic effect of drugs, their administration would become less cost effective in the near future.
The purpose of our research work is to develop a delivery systems for breast cancer cells using a microvectors of drugs which disassemble into a polymer-drug conjugate after internalization. These results highlight the potential uses of these responsive platforms suited for biomedical and pharmaceutical applications.
