Stimuli-Responsive Nanoplatform to Combine Magnetic Hyperthermia with Immunemodulators Delivery for Glioblastoma Treatment

Project Information

MHT-ImmunoEnhancer

Grant agreement ID: 843838

DOI

10.3030/843838

Project closed

EC signature date 28 March 2019

Start date 1 October 2019

End date 30 September 2021

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 183 473,28

EU contribution

€ 183 473,28

Coordinated by

FONDAZIONE ISTITUTO ITALIANO DI TECNOLOGIA
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MHT-ImmunoEnhancer (Stimuli-Responsive Nanoplatform to Combine Magnetic Hyperthermia with Immunemodulators Delivery for Glioblastoma Treatment)

Reporting period: 2019-10-01 to 2021-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common primary cancer of the central nervous system and prognosis of patients treated with the current standard care remains extremely poor. Indeed, conventional therapies, including surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, have not resulted in major improvements in the survival outcomes of patients, due to high recurrence and tumor spreading. Because conventional therapies are not effective, there is a clear and urgent need to develop innovative treatments that can be effective at improving the survival expectation of GBM patients.
“MHT-ImmunoEnhancer” focused at advancing the state of the art in GBM management by proposing a novel combinatorial immunotherapy directed to elicit an antitumor immune response capable to induce regression of primary and distant untreated tumors.
To achieve our goal, we designed a multifunctional nanosystem able to combine nanoparticle-mediated hyperthermia with the co-delivery of a potent immunomodulator intended to revert the immunosuppressive microenvironment, which is considered one of the major challenges responsible for the poor prognosis and tumor relapse in GBM.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The work performed during this project led to the proposal of a novel biodegradable and highly biocompatible delivery platform incorporating both iron oxide nanocubes, acting as mediators of mild magnetic hyperthermia (MHT) for thermal therapy, and an immunomodulator driving the re-shaping of tumor microenvironment in GBM. We observed that the proposed approach did not only directly kill GBM cells, but also resulted in the increased expression of molecular signatures that rendered MHT-resistant cells more susceptible to the cytotoxic activity of innate immune cells.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Currently, temozolomide combined with extended focal radiotherapy represents the standard treatment of GBM but, still, the median overall survival of patients is less than 15 months with no significant improvements in recent decades. The establishment of an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment in GBM is considered responsible for this therapeutic failure by playing a critical role in promoting resistance, immune evasion, tumor growth and spreading. This project demonstrates that a combinatorial approach that simultaneously promotes direct killing of cancer cells and modulates the immune microenvironment can provide a superior alternative to conventional treatments. By making treatment resistant cancer cells more susceptible to immune cell killing, our strategy can potentially overcome tumor recurrence, one of the major hurdles in GBM therapy.

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