Among all breast cancers affecting female population worldwide, 20% is represented by Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC), an aggressive subtype with very limited therapeutic options and poor survival rates. There is a continuous search for new therapeutic approaches that can overcome the shortcomings of the actually used therapies, mainly surgery and chemotherapy. Seeking for innovation in TNBC therapies, the HypoCyclo project focuses the optimal combination of chemotherapy and photodynamic therapy (PDT). PDT, a less known therapeutic approach, consists in the administration of a molecule absorbing red light, known as "photosensitizer" which produces reactive oxygen species (ROS), mainly singlet oxygen, upon irradiation with red light in the presence of oxygen. ROS can start a cascade of biological processes eventually killing cancer cells. PDT has become a feasible option thanks to the technological advances in lasers and fiber-optics allowing interstitial and intra-operative light delivery for the treatment of solid tumours, including breast cancers. The presence of oxygen is necessary for both chemotherapy and PDT to be effective. However, breast cancers often suffer from low oxygen levels, called hypoxia, limiting efficacy of the chosen therapies and therefore, and new systems that are able to release oxygen at the cancer site are currently investigated.
The objective of the project is the combination of chemotherapy with photodynamic therapy in optimized conditions for the effective treatment of TNBC also in hypoxic conditions. We plan to prepare new polymeric nanoparticles able to load cancer drugs together with a photosensitizer for PDT as well as an oxygen releasing agent (ORA). The goal of the project is also to keep the synthetic protocols simple, low-cost and green, in order to facilitate industrial application of the nanoparticles that perform best.
