Modelling of Prodrug Conversion Through Palladium Nanoparticles Encapsulated in Polymers

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Most anti-cancer drugs have serious side effects, limiting their efficacy. These could be reduced by using a prodrug which circulates harmlessly until being activated at the tumour site. In this project, we present a biophysical research programme comprising a experiments and an in silico model that aims to develop prodrug treatment strategy for multi-drug cancer therapies and chemical modulation of cancer cells. This work is based on the conjecture that designing and tailoring catalyst (palladium) embedded implants can provide a controlled prodrug-to-drug conversion near cancer cells. We will develop the polymer implants encapsulating palladium (Pd) and test its efficacy of prodrug diffusion, reaction, and conversion in quasi-2D and 3D experiments. In parallel work, we intend to develop a reliable and accurate in silico (mathematical and computational) model of prodrug conversion and validate its predictions with experiments. The validated model will be used as a "computer-aided design platform" to inform the design of experiments as well as the development of implants. We foresee that this whole framework will assist clinicians and practitioners to screen their prodrug strategies for desirable/non-desirable properties, thereby reducing the cost of laboratory-scale experimentation, accelerating development and hence the commercialisation of clinically relevant forms of Pd-bearing implants.