Modulation Of carbon Nanoparticles for pAncReatic Cancer tHerapy (MONARCH)

Yingru Zhou

Yingru Zhou has been awarded the Research Ireland’s Enterprise Partnership Scheme in partnership with Breakthrough Cancer Research. She is a PhD student under the supervision of Dr. Silvia Giordani at the School of Chemical Sciences at Dublin City University.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal types of cancer, with limited treatment options and challenges in early diagnosis. Traditional treatments like chemotherapy often cause severe side effects and a reduced quality of life for patients. Additionally, chemotherapy drugs tend to spread throughout the body, losing some of their effectiveness, which necessitates larger and more frequent doses.

To address these issues and improve treatment outcomes, this project aims to develop a drug delivery system that can transport drugs more precisely and efficiently to cancer tissues.

In developing this drug delivery system, we focused on using carbon nanoparticles, which are small and harmless. Afterward, we will modify them with targeting agents to enhance their ability to specifically target cancer cells. Finally, cancer drugs will be loaded onto the carbon nanoparticles, with their release being triggered by the cancer cell environment, ensuring minimal harm to healthy tissues. Further experiments on cells will evaluate the system’s effectiveness in terms of targeting ability, efficiency, and safety.

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The success of this study could lead to the emergence of a new class of drug delivery systems. These systems would enable the use of lower drug doses, reduce side effects, and improve treatment efficacy, ultimately increasing survival rates and improving the quality of life for pancreatic cancer patients.