Project: Modulation Of carbon Nanoparticles for pAncReatic Cancer tHerapy (MONARCH)

The MONARCH project is designing targeted carbon‑nanoparticle delivery systems to bring pancreatic cancer drugs directly to tumour cells while minimising harm to healthy tissue.

Challenge Space

Health Resistance

Prinicipal Investigator(s) and team names

Professor Silvia Giordani (PI), Yingru Zhou (PhD Student)

Collaborating Institutions

Funding support

Research Ireland (RI) and Breakthrough Cancer Research

Project start date

1 September 2024

End date

31 August 2031

Problem

Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the most lethal types of cancer, with limited treatment options and challenges in early diagnosis.

Traditional treatments like chemotherapy often cause severe side effects and a reduced quality of life for patients.

Additionally, chemotherapy drugs tend to spread throughout the body, losing some of their effectiveness, which necessitates larger and more frequent doses.

Background

To address these issues and improve treatment outcomes, this project aims to develop a drug delivery system that can transport drugs more precisely and efficiently to cancer tissues.

Solution

In developing this drug delivery system, we focused on using carbon nanoparticles, which are small and biocompatible. Afterwards, we will modify them with targeting agents to enhance their ability to specifically target cancer cells.

Finally, cancer drugs will be loaded onto the carbon nanoparticles, with their release being triggered by the cancer cell environment, ensuring minimal harm to healthy tissues.

Further experiments on cells will evaluate the system’s effectiveness in terms of targeting ability, efficiency, and safety.