Nanopharmaceuticals to combat pancreatic cancer

María Jesús Vicent Docón

Centro de Investigación Príncipe Felipe, Spain

Pancreatic cancer, in particular ductal carcinoma of the pancreas, is one of the most virulent forms of cancer. In the first year of diagnosis 90% of patients die. Current therapies, from chemotherapy to immunotherapy, only increase people’s life expectancy by a few months.

The project aims to design nanopharmaceuticals containing specific therapies capable of selectively killing tumor cells in the pancreas without damaging other healthy cells and organs.

In addition, researchers want to develop a nanovaccine to harness the patient’s immune system to prevent tumor recurrence years later. In this way, scientists hope to increase the life expectancy of these patients by prevention as well as tumor regression.

• Helena Isabel Fialho Florindo Roque Ferreira, Facultade de Farmacia da Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal

• Ronit Satchi-Fainaro, Sackler Faculty of Medicine Tel Aviv University, Israel

Sensitizing pancreatic cancer to immunotherapy with multimodal precision nanomedicines

€985,042