Boston University Cross-Disciplinary Training in Nanotechnology for Cancer

描述（由申请人提供）：癌症是人类的灾难，2008年美国有超过55万人死于癌症，占死亡人数的四分之一。今年新增确诊病例将超过140万例，随着人口老龄化，预计这一数字只会增长。从全球健康的角度来看，绝大多数癌症死亡发生在低收入和中等收入国家，这些国家的发病率和死亡率正在上升，这增加了我们改善预防和治疗的紧迫性。纳米技术在癌症领域的前景在于能够设计出可定制的纳米级结构，这些结构可以装载一种或多种有效载荷，如化疗药物、靶向单位、成像和诊断试剂。纳米技术对癌症有着巨大的希望，有潜力解决目前癌症预防、诊断和治疗面临的许多难题。其中包括通过识别罕见的循环肿瘤细胞，将纳米技术应用于早期检测/癌症预防。特别是蛋白质组学正在成为检测核基质蛋白和筛选早期肿瘤阶段的新生物标志物的工具。纳米线和纳米反杠杆阵列是目前正在开发的用于从生物液体中早期检测癌前病变和恶性病变的主要方法。纳米生物技术已被应用于改善药物传递和克服癌症药物传递的一些问题。通过纳米颗粒靶向肿瘤组织，使肿瘤组织对辐射增敏，从而增强放射治疗的活性和特异性，是目前临床试验中的一种方法。纳米颗粒也被用于癌症的基因治疗。靶向肿瘤环境，而不是肿瘤本身，可以通过纳米颗粒介导的基因传递到肿瘤新生血管。随着纳米技术在治疗方面的潜在进展，肿瘤成像的重大改进将需要它们的有效应用。新技术允许对残留疾病进行敏感检测，并对实体瘤患者中这些最小残留癌细胞进行分子表征，这将对确定疗程长度、节省患者潜在毒性和费用至关重要。在拟议的培训中心提案中，我们努力做到这一点，直接将查尔斯河校区物理和生物科学的教师和学生与医学校园的医学研究人员和临床医生结合起来。我们的项目通过共同指导、交叉研究项目、跨学科课程和研讨会在校园之间建立联系机制，轻松克服一英里沥青的简单物理障碍，并引导参与者克服更具挑战性的科学文化和学科障碍。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Cancer is a scourge on the face of humanity, responsible for over 550,000 deaths in 2008 in the US, one out of every four. New diagnoses this year will top 1.4 million, with projections only growing as the population ages. From a global health perspective, the vast majority of cancer deaths occur in low and middle income countries, and the incidence and death rate is rising in these countries, adding to our urgency to improve prevention and treatment. The promise of nanotechnology in cancer lies in the ability to engineer customizable nanoscale constructs that can be loaded with one or more payloads such as chemotherapeutics, targeting units, imaging and diagnostic agents. Nanotechnology holds great promise for cancer, with the potential to address many difficult problems now facing cancer prevention, diagnosis, and therapy. These include the application of nanotechnology to early detection/cancer prevention, through identification of rare circulating tumor cells. Proteomics in particular is emerging as a tool for detection of nuclear matrix proteins and new biomarkers for screening of early tumors stage. Nanowires and nanocantilever arrays are among the leading approaches under development for the early detection of precancerous and malignant lesions from biological fluids. Nanobiotechnologies have been applied to improve drug delivery and to overcome some of the problems of drug delivery in cancer. Enhancing the activity and specificity of radiation therapy by sensitization of tumor tissues to radiation through nanoparticle targeting of tumor tissue is an approach currently in clinical testing. Nanoparticles are also being used for gene therapy for cancer. Targeting of the tumor environment, rather than the tumor itself, could be facilitated by nanoparticle-mediated gene delivery to tumor neovasculature. With potential advances in therapy garnered through nanotechnology, significant improvements in tumor imaging will be required for their effective application. New technology allowing sensitive detection of residual disease, and molecular characterization of these minimal residual cancer cells in patients with solid tumors, will be critical in determining the length of a course of treatment, saving the patient potential toxicity and expense. In the proposed training center proposal, we endeavor to do just that, directly couple faculty and students from physical and biological sciences on our Charles River Campus with the medical researchers and clinicians on our Medical Campus. Our program creates mechanisms for connections between the campuses with co-mentoring, cross-fertilized research projects, and interdisciplinary courses and workshops, easily overcoming the simple physical barrier of a mile of asphalt, and leading participants on the way to surmount the more challenging scientific cultural and disciplinary barriers. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The promise of nanotechnology in cancer lies in the ability to engineer customizable nanoscale constructs that can be loaded with one or more payloads such as chemotherapeutics, targeting units, imaging and diagnostic agents. Nanotechnology thus holds great promise for cancer, with the potential to address many of the most difficult problems now facing cancer prevention, diagnosis, and therapy. Boston University is building a cross-disciplinary training program to train the next generation of scientists, engineers and researchers to fulfill this promise.