One of the main challenges in current human health research concerns the treatment of cancer. Indeed, cancer remains one of the main causes of death in the developed countries, which has a significant cost both humanly and economically speaking. A large wide of treatments are actually in development, and several present good results and may be available in several hospitals in Europe. Among them, one treatment which proved as promising is magnetic cancer hyperthermia therapy. That consists in the injection of nanoparticles which are able to heat when submitted to an ac magnetic field, killing preferentially the cancer cells instead of the healthy cells due to a difference in temperature sensitivity. However, the main inconvenient of the technique arises from the concept itself. The heating power of the current nanoheaters is relatively low, which requires a massive and direct injection in the tumor. Moreover, the control of the temperature is ensured by inserting thermocouple i.e macroscopic thermometers directly in the tissues adjacent to the tumor, which is quite invasive.
The idea of the current project to solve these inconveniences consists in designing a softer approach based on local intracellular heating. Concretely, that consists to consider this treatment not at the tumor scale but directly at cells’ scale. That implies to internalized the nanoheaters inside the cancer cells using appropriate targeting agents before to produce the heating, which may lead to their death. Moreover, the control of the temperature at such scale may be provided by a unique tool developed here. By using a molecular luminescent thermometer, we may be able to sense the local temperature directly in the cancer cells with high precision and fast response, and without being invasive.
Consequently, the currents objectives of the project consists in 1) developing a system to image the temperature in 2D and to couple it to a magnetic induction system which can be apply to cell cultures under microscope observation, 2) to observe the diffusion of the heat produced by the nanoheaters into the cells and 3) to determine if such temperature increase is able to provoke cells death. All these objectives may permit to determinate the feasibility of a hyperthermia therapy based on local intracellular heating as new advanced cancer therapy.
