Design of Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles-Based Targeted Drug Delivery Against Colorectal Cancer — 85a — Mahadi Hasan, Khosrow Rezvani    

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most prevalent and deadly forms of cancer worldwide. Mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) has gained wide attention for drug delivery studies in colon cancer cells in few decades. MSN has properties like facile surface functionalization, elevated drug loading, robustness, excellent biocompatibility which make it a good candidate as a drug delivery carrier in cancer treatments. The recent progress in MSN-based drug delivery methods is mainly oriented on designing stimuli-responsive, biocompatible mechanisms along with pore-blocking agents. The study of biological actions of nanocarriers in the blood vessel has also earned a lot of interest. My research aimed at exploring anti-cancer activity of the drug veratridine (VTD) with mesoporous silica nanoassemblies. In vitro MMP-7 and MMP-9 triggered drug release studies of casein-coated MSNs have shown promising results. In CRC cells, MSNs can selectively deliver VTD and release the payload in the presence of enzymes secreted by cancer cells. This strategy offers double benefit of increasing the anticancer effects at the same time mitigating potential side effects on healthy cells and therefore maximizing the overall therapeutic efficacy. Future studies will be focused on improving the colloidal stability and drug-loading capacity of MSNs through PEGylation.

University of South Dakota
Grigoriy Sereda