| AVS 61st International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Biomaterials Plenary Session | Sunday Sessions |
| Session BP+BI+AS-SuA |
| Session: | Biomaterials Plenary Session |
| Presenter: | Mauro Ferrari, Houston Methodist Research Institute |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
The advent of novel engineering technologies affords unprecedented advances toward long-elusive objectives of medical research. Individualized medicine responds to the basic but generally unattainable questions of diagnosing a pathology at its earliest stage, when therapy is most effective, identifying the right therapy, reaching the right therapeutic target in the body at the right time, and securing immediate feedback as for its efficacy and undesired collateral effect. Individualized medicine appears to be a credible general objective in cancer and other fields of medicine, owing to the integration of classical disciplines of clinical medicine, methods of molecular biology, and novel technology platforms.
Nanotechnologies are of great interest in the context of the drive toward individualized medicine, and may prove to be the necessary catalyst for its large-scale implementation. In this talk I will present several nanoporous-silicon-based approaches for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). First, nano-textured chips for proteomic and peptidomic content profiling of biological fluid samples will be demonstrated for the identification of new biomarkers of TNBC. Second, employing methods of Transport Oncophysics, multistage vectors (MSV) will be shown to afford unprecedented therapeutic results in animal models of TNBC with pulmonary metastases, and to allow the in-vivo verification of novel hypotheses about the fundamental driver mechanisms for TNBC. Methods will also be shown to deliver combination therapeutics in exactly the same optimal proportions in vivo as their preparation in the laboratory. Thirdly, a nanochannel implant will be demonstrated, for the long-term release of agents for the prevention of local recurrences of TNBC, with a reduction of the concurrent loss of bone density.
It is hoped that these innovations will contribute to the fight against TNBC, which encompass multiple varieties of breast cancer, including those that arise from BRCA mutations, and which share the unfortunate reality of being associated with much poorer prognosis that the breast cancers that are responsive to estrogen therapy or Herceptin.