Designing Peptide hydrogels as vehicles for targeted and localised in-vivo therapeutics delivery

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One of the key engineering challenges in the life-science and biomedical sectors is the design and manufacturing of bespoke hydrogels for 3D cell culture, tissue engineering and cell/drug delivery. These soft highly hydrated materials underpin a large and growing sector of biotech and biomed industries whether they are used in-vitro for the study of cell behaviour, toxicity testing or tissue engineering, or in-vivo for the delivery of cells and/or drugs or to promote regeneration of damaged tissues. In this context the development of in-vivo injectable and biocompatible hydrogels for the targeted and localised delivery of therapeutics whether small drugs, large biological compounds or even cells, has been the focus of significant work from engineers, biologists, and clinicians alike. Through this project we aim to develop through an interdisciplinary collaboration involving Prof Saiani Prof Miller and Dr Finegan groups novel injectable peptide-based hydrogel systems for localised therapeutics delivery in the context of solid cancer tumour treatment.The project will involve three main stages. First the selected therapeutical compounds, which will include Doxorubicin a well know cancer drug, will be formulated with the hydrogels and their release kinetic investigated with the aim to design systems that retain the therapeutical compound within the hydrogel allowing for prolonged release. Subsequently the novel formulations developed will be tested on cancer cells to ensure that the hydrogels do not result in the therapeutic compounds being de-activated or degraded and that the hydrogel molecular building blocks do not interfere with the therapeutic action pathway. Finally, the most promising formulations will be test using a small animal cancer model to understand the effect the novel hydrogel-based delivery vehicles developed on solid tumour evolution and regression.