Cancer is a scourge on the face of humanity, responsible for over 550,000 deaths in 2008 in the US, one out of every four. New diagnoses this year will top 1.4 million, with projections only growing as the population ages. From a global health perspective, the vast majority of cancer deaths occur in low and middle income countries, and the incidence and death rate is rising in these countries, adding to our urgency to improve prevention and treatment. The promise of nanotechnology in cancer lies in the ability to engineer customizable nanoscale constructs that can be loaded with one or more payloads such as chemotherapeutics, targeting units, imaging and diagnostic agents. Nanotechnology holds great promise for cancer, with the potential to address many difficult problems now facing cancer prevention, diagnosis, and therapy. These include the application of nanotechnology to early detection/cancer prevention, through identification of rare circulating tumor cells. Proteomics in particular is emerging as a tool for detection of nuclear matrix proteins and new biomarkers for screening of early tumors stage. Nanowires and nanocantilever arrays are among the leading approaches under development for the early detection of precancerous and malignant lesions from biological fluids. Nanobiotechnologies have been applied to improve drug delivery and to overcome some of the problems of drug delivery in cancer. Enhancing the activity and specificity of radiation therapy by sensitization of tumor tissues to radiation through nanoparticle targeting of tumor tissue is an approach currently in clinical testing. Nanoparticles are also being used for gene therapy for cancer. Targeting of the tumor environment, rather than the tumor itself, could be facilitated by nanoparticle-mediated gene delivery to tumor neovasculature. With potential advances in therapy garnered through nanotechnology, significant improvements in tumor imaging will be required for their effective application. New technology allowing sensitive detection of residual disease, and molecular characterization of these minimal residual cancer cells in patients with solid tumors, will be critical in determining the length of a course of treatment, saving the patient potential toxicity and expense. In the proposed training center proposal, we endeavor to do just that, directly couple faculty and students from physical and biological sciences on our Charles River Campus with the medical researchers and clinicians on our Medical Campus. Our program creates mechanisms for connections between the campuses with co-mentoring, cross-fertilized research projects, and interdisciplinary courses and workshops, easily overcoming the simple physical barrier of a mile of asphalt, and leading participants on the way to surmount the more challenging scientific cultural and disciplinary barriers.

Public Health Relevance

The promise of nanotechnology in cancer lies in the ability to engineer customizable nanoscale constructs that can be loaded with one or more payloads such as chemotherapeutics, targeting units, imaging and diagnostic agents. Nanotechnology thus holds great promise for cancer, with the potential to address many of the most difficult problems now facing cancer prevention, diagnosis, and therapy. Boston University is building a cross-disciplinary training program to train the next generation of scientists, engineers and researchers to fulfill this promise.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Type
Education Projects (R25)
Project #
3R25CA153955-03S3
Application #
8547961
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZCA1-RTRB-2 (M1))
Program Officer
Lin, Alison J
Project Start
2010-09-01
Project End
2015-07-31
Budget Start
2012-08-01
Budget End
2013-07-31
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
2012
Total Cost
$45,144
Indirect Cost
$3,344
Name
Boston University
Department
Physics
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
049435266
City
Boston
State
MA
Country
United States
Zip Code
02215
Colby, Aaron H; Berry, Samantha M; Moran, Ann M et al. (2017) Highly Specific and Sensitive Fluorescent Nanoprobes for Image-Guided Resection of Sub-Millimeter Peritoneal Tumors. ACS Nano 11:1466-1477
Colby, Aaron H; Oberlies, Nicholas H; Pearce, Cedric J et al. (2017) Nanoparticle drug-delivery systems for peritoneal cancers: a case study of the design, characterization and development of the expansile nanoparticle. Wiley Interdiscip Rev Nanomed Nanobiotechnol 9:
Blaha, Laura; Zhang, Chentian; Cabodi, Mario et al. (2017) A microfluidic platform for modeling metastatic cancer cell matrix invasion. Biofabrication 9:045001
Colby, Aaron H; Liu, Rong; Schulz, Morgan D et al. (2016) Two-Step Delivery: Exploiting the Partition Coefficient Concept to Increase Intratumoral Paclitaxel Concentrations In vivo Using Responsive Nanoparticles. Sci Rep 6:18720
Digesu, Christopher S; Hofferberth, Sophie C; Grinstaff, Mark W et al. (2016) From Diagnosis to Treatment: Clinical Applications of Nanotechnology in Thoracic Surgery. Thorac Surg Clin 26:215-28
Herrera, Victoria Lm; Colby, Aaron H; Tan, Glaiza Al et al. (2016) Evaluation of expansile nanoparticle tumor localization and efficacy in a cancer stem cell-derived model of pancreatic peritoneal carcinomatosis. Nanomedicine (Lond) 11:1001-15
Vargas, Diego A; Sun, Meng; Sadykov, Khikmet et al. (2016) The Integrated Role of Wnt/?-Catenin, N-Glycosylation, and E-Cadherin-Mediated Adhesion in Network Dynamics. PLoS Comput Biol 12:e1005007
Trudeau, Kyle M; Colby, Aaron H; Zeng, Jialiu et al. (2016) Lysosome acidification by photoactivated nanoparticles restores autophagy under lipotoxicity. J Cell Biol 214:25-34
Zhang, Chentian; Barrios, Maria P; Alani, Rhoda M et al. (2016) A microfluidic Transwell to study chemotaxis. Exp Cell Res 342:159-65
Martínez, Laura E; Hardcastle, Joseph M; Wang, Jeffrey et al. (2016) Helicobacter pylori strains vary cell shape and flagellum number to maintain robust motility in viscous environments. Mol Microbiol 99:88-110

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