Bernasconi
Fakultäten » Medizinische Fakultät » Kinderspital Zürich: Medizinische Klinik » Onkologie, Abteilung » Prof. Dr. Felix Niggli » Bernasconi
Completed research project
| Title / Titel | A Molecular ZIP Code for Vascular Targeting of Pediatric Embryonal Tumors | ||||||
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| Abstract (PDF, 14 KB) | |||||||
| Summary / Zusammenfassung | Treatment methods for pediatric solid tumors generally include combination chemotherapy and combined modality strategies. Unfortunately, most metastatic solid tumors and high-grade malignant brain tumors have remained resistant to treatment. Furthermore, many who survive childhood cancer experience treatment complications as adults. One of the biggest challenges of treating children with cancer is achieving complete remission, and ensuring that they will be able to lead normal, productive lives in adulthood. Improvements of existing chemotherapies, by delivering drugs specifically to the tumor or its vasculature, will allow preventing late effects, thereby increasing the efficacy of the treatments. Broad therapeutic approaches aiming at destroying the tumor vasculature and/or at preventing the formation of new blood vessels are being successfully implemented for the treatment of several cancers. However, no specific target is known so far for targeting of embryonal pediatric tumors, such as rhabdomyosarcoma and neuroblastoma. In vivo phage display is a powerful new method that allows the identification of peptides that selectively target tumor angiogenic vasculature, and other important elements of tumors, like lymphangiogenic vessels and tumor cells themselves. With the experience collected over the past years with in vivo phage display and on basic aspects of rhabdomyosarcoma tumor biology, we aim to identify the molecular addresses for targeted drug delivery in rhabdomyosarcoma. This should be the first step toward mapping of the molecular addresses for targeted drug delivery to embryonal pediatric tumors. Weitere Informationen |
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| Keywords / Suchbegriffe | Embryonal tumours, tumor targeting, angiogenesis | ||||||
| Project leadership and contacts / Projektleitung und Kontakte |
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| Funding source(s) / Unterstützt durch |
Foundation SwissBridge |
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| Duration of Project / Projektdauer | Jan 2008 to Dec 2010 |