REAP: new strategy in cancer treatment

When tumor becomes resistant, cancer treatment may stop working. The cellular origin of relapse is often linked to drug tolerant persister cells (DTP), which survive treatment and can remain for years. In this way, detection of residual tumor cells proves to be challenging for cancer researchers. REAP, the new european project launched this week, has an ambitious goal: revealing DTPs in cancer by developing efficiently multimodal imaging systems.

Nine partners from six countries will join forces to accomplish this goal, and Center for Research in Biological Chemistry and Molecular Materials (CiQUS) will be on board. Several teams will work on laser sources for photoacoustic microscopy and tomography, as well as optical coherence techniques to enable the design of a two-photon laser scanning system. In parallel, sophisticated nanoparticles will be designed with optimal properties to be recognized by the newly generated multimodal system. Biofunctionalized nanoparticles will serve as contrast agent to selectively target breast cancer cells, and here is where CiQUS researchers take part.

"Our mission is to ensure that these nanoparticles are suitable for detecting persistent cells by operating as efficient contrast agents" said Beatriz Pelaz, PI researcher at CiQUS and head of the project in USC: “We will modify their surface to ensure compatibility at the cellular level, and provide them with great colloidal stability to perform their function as well as the ability to target these cells”. Her research group BioNanoTools will also conduct nanotoxicology studies to ensure the reduced toxicity of the nanoparticles, and holds wide experience in the syntheses and characterization of nanomaterials, adapting their surface to turn them biologically active.

REAP project is part of the Horizon 2020 Information and Communication Technologies work programme for the develop of disruptive photonics technologies. Over the next years, the Medical University of Vienna (Austria) will coordinate a consortium where four universities, a research institute and four industrial partners will bring complementary expertise in multiple fields together to significantly advance the technology readiness level of contrast agents, lasers, sensors, and image analysis software through joint efforts.

_{*image: BioNanoTools will develop contrast agents capable of identifying DTPs. (CiQUS)}