9^th World Drug Delivery Summit

Biography

Biography: Maria Principia Scavo

Abstract

Familiar adenomatous polyposis (FAP) is a genetic condition secondary to germline mutations in the APC gene with a prevalence of one in 10,000 newborns. Patients with this disease will eventually develop colorectal cancer and other cancers of the digestive tract, which typically present themselves in the mid-teens [1]. Prophylactic surgery of the colon is actually the only current standard of care, to avoid malignancy, as long-term exposure to chemo preventive agents such as sulindac (a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug) and silymarin (phytoestrogen), usually used to prevent polyps formation in this type of patients, is not feasible. Here, we have used a modified porous silicon-based multistage vector (MSV), rationally designed to deliver therapeutic agents to neoplastic tissue to delivery sulindac and silymarin [11, 12]. Furthermore, the surface of the MSV can be coated with antibodies and other targeting agents that bind to tumor vasculature or neoplastic cells [22, 23]. In this study, MSVs were loaded with poly (ethylene glycol)-block-poly(-caprolactone) (PEG-PCL) micelles encapsulating sulindac or silymarin. Preferential binding and internalization of these drugs into colon cancer cells was obtained using a targeting strategy against the protein meprin A, which is demonstrate, and we confirmed in our work, is overexpressed in human colon cancer cells and in the small intestine of ApcMin/+ mice. We propose that this delivery system could potentially be used to reduce drug-induced side effects in FAP patients, thus enabling long-term prevention of adenoma formation.