[Thu. 19 May. 2016] Prof. Zhuang Liu/Nanotechnology for enhanced cancer radiation therapy and immunotherapy

Nanotechnology for enhanced cancer radiation therapy 

and immunotherapy

Nanomaterials especially functional inorganic nanomaterials exhibit a range of unique inherent physical and chemical properties useful in biomedicine. Starting from 2009, our group has been working on the development of functional nanomaterials including carbon nanomaterials, rare earth upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs), metal oxide and sulfide nanostructures, organic nanoparticles as well as natural biomaterials, for applications in multimodal biomedical imaging, drug delivery, as well as photo-therapies of cancer. In the first part of this talk, I will introduce our latest efforts on the development of nanotechnology to enhance the efficacy of cancer radiation therapy (RT), one of three mainstream cancer treatment methods used in the clinic. We have uncovered that certain types of inorganic nanomaterials could absorb X-ray, and thereby concentrate a great deal of ionization energy locally in the tumor to enhance the efficacy of RT. With the help of nanotechnology, we could also change the tumor microenvironment (e.g. tumor hypoxia) to overcome hypoxia-associated RT resistance by tumors. In the second part of this talk, I will then discuss our recent studies in the area of nano-immunotherapy. We have tried to combine photothermal therapy with immunotherapy using nano-agents which not only exhibit strong near-infrared (NIR) absorbance for efficient photothermal conversion, but also serve as nano-adjuvants to promote the immunological responses. Stimulated by the tumor-associated antigens released after photothermal tumor ablation, the triggered immunological responses if in combination with anti-CTLA4 therapy to suppress the activity of regulatory T cells could result in effective inhibition of tumor cells remaining in the body, promising for treatment of cancer metastasis.

Prof. Zhuang Liu
Institute of Functional Nano & Soft Materials Laboratory (FUNSOM),
Soochow University, China