Tumor Targeting with Guided Silica Nanopartilces for Prostate Cancer Therapy

Nanotechnology offers unique approaches to probe and control a variety of biological and medical processes that occur at nanometer lenght scales, and is expected to have a revolutionary impact on biology and medicine. Nanoparticles (NPs) have been recently developed as one of the most coming out technological tools in cancer diagnosis and therapy. Thanks to their advantageous chemical-physical properties, the nanoparticles are able to accumulate in the tumor (EPR effect “Enhaced permeability and retention effect). This tumor distribution is enhaced when the nanoparticles are functionalized with targeting moieties as monoclonal antibody, or peptide. Furthermore guided nanopartilces increase the accumulation of encapsulated molecules (drug or tracker) in the tumor sites for therapy and diagnosis application. Specific targeted delivery and control drug release are desiderable properties of a drug for tumor therapy. The aim of this project is to use a monoclonal antibody (mAb) direct against a tumor associate antigen (TAA) : PSMA ( prostate specific membrane antigen) in order to veiculate specifically silica NPs loaded with mTHPC, a photosensitizing reagent, that once admistrated is later activeted by light to induce production of cytotoxic specie leading to tumor cell destruction.