This PhD is part funded through the Knowledge and Economy Skills Scholarship 2 Programme which you can find out more about here
The development of new therapeutic technologies, to address pressing challenges in the treatment of cancer, is a key priority for biomedical research. In particular, ovarian cancer is a key target because of its severity and high mortality rates. The survival rate for patients with ovarian cancer has not improved over the past 20 years, highlighting the urgent need for new strategies that improve ovarian cancer prognosis. This project will develop new low dose therapeutic technologies that focus on ovarian cancer (with broader compatibility to a range of cancer types), which should have the minimal possible impact on the overall health and well-being of patients. Combining recently patented technology towards the preparation of biodegradable nanovectors with interesting drug candidates for the treatment of ovarian cancer, with the aim to generate a novel platform that will harness the benefits of both combinative therapy and nanotechnology. By carefully engineering the chemical and physical features of nanovectors highly uniform particles could be generated then loaded with controllable amounts of chemotherapeutic drug. Reflecting the collaborative nature of this project, the performance of drug-loaded nanovectors will then be tested in vitro using a combination of 2D and 3D cancer models to give indication of therapeutic efficacy as a key proof-of-principal before pre-clinical studies.