Biodegradable nanocarriers for drug delivery
Researchers from the IMC have focused on the development of new types of biodegradable polymer drug delivery carriers suitable for the treatment of cancer diseases. The results of research on new type of star polymers have been published in Macromolecules.
A number of hydrophilic polymer carriers of low-molecular-weight antitcancer drugs have been described in the literature, characterized by good solubility in body fluids, preferential accumulation in cancer tissues, and a prolonged therapeutic effect. However, it has been shown that many of them have the suboptimal size for effective penetration into cancer tissue and, in addition, accumulate in the body after fulfilling their biological function. IMC researchers have therefore decided to focus their attention on the development of new types of size-adjustable and biodegradable polymer drug carriers. Researchers from the Department of Polymer and Colloid Immunotherapeutics, which is a part of the Biotechnology and Biomedicine Center in Vestec (BIOCEV), have succeeded in preparing modular, size adjustable, carriers based on star polymers composed of hydrophilic PHPMA or PEG arms attached to a cyclotriphosphazene core via biodegradable linkers. The prepared nanomaterials had a suitable range of hydrodynamic sizes for effective penetration into various types of cancers, and in the intracellular environment-modeling conditions they disintegrated into lower-molecular-weight fragments easily excretable from the body. The suitability of these carriers for in vivo drug delivery has been demonstrated by the successful attachment of two types of anticancer drugs. The results of the research were published in the prestigious journal Macromolecules.
Overview of Scientific Publications of the IMC
