Boston University Cross-Disciplinary Training in Nanotechnology for Cancer

描述（由申请人提供）：癌症是人类面临的一个祸害，2008年在美国造成超过55万人死亡，每四人中就有一人死亡。今年的新诊断将超过140万，随着人口老龄化，预测只会增长。从全球健康的角度来看，绝大多数癌症死亡发生在中低收入国家，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。纳米技术在癌症中的前景在于设计可定制的纳米级结构的能力，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，成像和诊断剂。纳米技术为癌症带来了巨大的希望，有可能解决癌症预防、诊断和治疗所面临的许多难题。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。纳米线和纳米悬臂阵列是正在开发的用于从生物流体中早期检测癌前病变和恶性病变的主要方法之一。纳米生物技术已被应用于改善药物递送和克服癌症中药物递送的一些问题。通过靶向肿瘤组织的纳米颗粒使肿瘤组织对辐射敏感来增强放射治疗的活性和特异性是目前临床测试中的一种方法。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，可以通过纳米粒子介导的基因递送到肿瘤新生血管来促进。随着纳米技术在治疗方面的潜在进展，肿瘤成像的显着改进将需要其有效应用。新技术允许残留疾病的灵敏检测，以及实体瘤患者中这些最小残留癌细胞的分子表征，将在确定疗程长度，节省患者潜在毒性和费用方面至关重要。在拟议的培训中心提案中，我们奋进做到这一点，直接将查尔斯河校区物理和生物科学的教师和学生与我们医学校区的医学研究人员和临床医生联系起来。我们的计划创造了校园之间的联系机制，共同指导，交叉施肥研究项目，跨学科课程和研讨会，轻松克服一英里沥青的简单物理障碍，并带领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.