Description du projet
Une thérapie radicale par neutrons pour les cancers difficilement accessibles
Lorsque nous parlons de cancer, nous pensons souvent à la chimiothérapie. Cependant, la radiothérapie est une arme puissante depuis plus d’un siècle. Elle utilise de fortes doses de radiations ionisantes pour tuer les cellules cancéreuses ou ralentir leur croissance en endommageant leur ADN. Les thérapies à base de neutrons, qui fonctionnent principalement par le biais d’interactions nucléaires, ont également été utilisées pour traiter des tumeurs radiorésistantes, mais elles ne sont pas suffisamment spécifiques au cancer. Cela peut entraîner des dommages aux tissus sains et provoquer une nouvelle cancérogenèse. Les thérapies photomédicales utilisent la lumière pour déclencher des réactions mortelles entre des composés photosensibles et l’oxygène, en ciblant les cellules cancéreuses. Toutefois, leur profondeur de pénétration n’est pas suffisante pour atteindre les cancers profonds. Le projet FRINGE, financé par l’UE, développe une nouvelle approche thérapeutique combinant le meilleur des deux mondes.
Objectif
Deep lying tumours like aggressive brain cancer remain very difficult to treat and existing therapies offer only marginal increase in survival rates. In the case of photomedical therapies they are very effective, but mainly limited by their insufficient depth of light penetration into tissue. Current neutron-based therapies have sufficient penetration depth but suffer from lack of cancer specificity. In FRINGE we propose a genuinely new hybrid-technology. At its heart are chemical agents (photosensitisers - PS) which preferentially accumulate in the tumours especially in brain cancers where the blood brain barrier is compromised. The PSs designed for FRINGE will contain metal centres like Gadolinium (Gd), to enable interaction with incoming neutrons and facilitate the transfer of neutron energy into electron excitation of the PS, confirmed by concomitant fluorescence emission. Interaction with ambient oxygen will generate reactive oxygen species which will kill the tumour cells. The main scientific breakthrough of this project will be to establish experimental proof-of-principle of this novel neutron-activated therapy. FRINGE will combine the advantages of photomedical therapies (no mutagenic radiation) with the advantages of neutron-based therapies (large penetration depth). The externally-applied neutron beam can be energy-tuned to become therapeutic exactly at the depth of the tumour. Exploiting Gd as a contrast agent, FRINGE can also become a theranostic modality by use of magnetic resonance imaging. FRINGE has the potential of causing immunogenic cell death to cancers which could eliminate occult metastasis and act as a ‘cancer vaccine’. The highly interdisciplinary project team comprises world renowned experts from a unique combination of disciplines: Nuclear physicists, synthetic chemists, photochemists, photobiologists, medical physicists, quantum chemists and radio-oncologists will join forces to lay the foundations for a novel, curative cancer therapy.
Champ scientifique
Programme(s)
Régime de financement
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinateur
0450 Oslo
Norvège