Controlling Structure and Function of Polymer-Nanoparticle Assemblies for Health Applications

疾病的治疗是一项涉及所有加拿大人的紧迫挑战。未来治疗各种疾病的关键是使现有药物更安全、更具体。靶向给药涉及用抗体或纳米粒配制药物，以促进它们靶向于身体的特定区域(例如癌症肿瘤)，从而使它们更有效，副作用更少。聚合物纳米粒子是一种被广泛研究的药物传递系统，它具有高度的稳定性、生物相容性、可生物降解性，并能够包裹包括药物、金纳米粒子(GNPs)和DNA在内的多种治疗剂，为治疗性纳米材料(纳米药物)开辟了令人兴奋的机会。在这份计划中，我们利用我们在纳米粒子聚合物功能化和聚合物纳米粒子微流控合成方面的独特组合专业知识，以及由Create计划为药物输送提供的HQP培训机会和合作，以应对当前基于聚合物的纳米药物的研究挑战，从而为疾病治疗开发令人兴奋的新策略。例如，我们将设计一种单一的基于聚合物的纳米平台，用于同时将抗癌药物和GNPs(提高辐射剂量)输送到癌症肿瘤，进行靶向和强大的联合治疗。这项工作还将探索一种将DNA包装在聚合物纳米颗粒中用于基因治疗应用的新方法。这种方法将在分娩前提供更好的敏感遗传物质保护，并在分娩后选择性光触发释放，从而实现基因/药物联合治疗，在这种治疗中，选择性基因表达增加癌症对药物的敏感性，从而获得更好的整体患者结果。******

The treatment of disease is a pressing challenge that touches all Canadians. A vital key to the future of treating all forms of disease is making existing drugs safer and more specific. Targeted drug delivery involves the formulation of drugs with antibodies or nanoparticles to promote their targeting to specific regions of the body (e.g. cancerous tumors), in order to make them more effective with fewer side effects. Polymer nanoparticles are widely studied drug delivery systems which can be highly stable, biocompatible, biodegradable, and capable of encapsulating multiple therapeutic agents, including drugs, gold nanoparticles (GNPs), and DNA, opening up exciting opportunities for therapeutic nanomaterials (nanomedicines). In this proposal, we leverage our unique combined expertise in polymer functionalization of nanoparticles and microfluidic controlled synthesis of polymer nanoparticles, in addition to HQP training opportunities and collaborations enabled by the CREATE program Polymer Nanoparticles for Drug Delivery (PoND), in order to address current research challenges in polymer-based nanomedicines and thus develop exciting new strategies for disease treatment. For example, we will design a single polymer-based nanoplatform for delivering both an anticancer drug and GNPs (which enhance radiation doses) to cancerous tumors at the same time for targeted and powerful combination therapy. This work will also explore a new way of packaging DNA in polymer nanoparticles for gene therapy applications. This approach will provide better protection of the sensitive genetic material before delivery along with selective light-triggered release after delivery, enabling combined gene/drug treatments where selective gene expression increases the cancer sensitivity to the drug for a better overall patient outcome. ******