Objective
Microbubbles (MBs) are used as contrast agent in ultrasound (US) imaging for a variety of tumours while little has been done for glioblastomas, a rare cancer. Intraoperative Contrast-Enhanced US-imaging (CEUS) using lipidic MBs hold promises in increasing extent of resection of such tumors. Furthermore, MBs gained recently interest as a delivery system for drugs. We will develop a new generation of multimodal MBs, acting simultaneously as contrast agent for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), CEUS and intra-operative fluorescence for multimodal real-time image-guided resection of glioblastomas. We plan to transform MBs by replacing air with perfluorcarbon gas and/or attaching super-paramagnetic-iron-oxide nanoparticles for MRI visualization. We will also engineer MBs with RGD-motif to adhere selectively to pathological endothelial integrins and with near-infrared fluorophores for simultaneous US deep tissue imaging and direct microscopic tumour visualization to maximize resection. A software will be developed for integration of preoperative MRI, intraoperative US and microscopic imaging. We will focus on lipidic and polymeric MBs. Lipidic MBs are approved for clinical use; therefore, once modified, more easily translatable into clinical applications to reach a feasibility study on patients. In addition, we will improve multifunctional, polymer-based MBs. Multifunctional-stabilized-polymer-MBs are more stable and more versatile to be complexed with different molecules or nanoparticles as compared to lipidic Mbs and will be designed as a platform for delivering standard and/or experimental chemotherapeutic drugs to the tumour, acting as an innovative way for local targeting and delivering any kind of agent to a specific target, in a safe and controlled fashion. This would be a big step forward in the field of personalized medicine, moving standard MG image-guided treatment towards more effective, safer, molecular-based tailored interventions to specific patients.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicineoncology
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencespersonalized medicine
- engineering and technologymedical engineeringdiagnostic imagingmagnetic resonance imaging
- engineering and technologynanotechnologynano-materials
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesacousticsultrasound
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Call for proposal
FP7-HEALTH-2013-INNOVATION-1
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Funding Scheme
CP-FP - Small or medium-scale focused research projectCoordinator
20133 Milano
Italy