Christine Dufès | University of Strathclyde, Glasgow (original) (raw)
Dr Christine Dufès is a Reader at the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences (SIPBS) (University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK). She teaches on the Master of Pharmacy and on various MSc / MRes postgraduate degrees.
Christine obtained a Doctorate in Pharmacy (with Distinction and congratulations of the Jury, 1997) and a PhD (with a European Label, Distinction and congratulations of the Jury, 2002) from the University of Poitiers (France). After four years as a post-doctoral researcher at the Cancer Research UK Beatson Laboratories in Glasgow, she was appointed as a Lecturer at SIPBS in 2006, obtained fellowship of the Higher Education Academy in 2007, became a Senior Lecturer in 2012 and a Reader in 2019. Christine has been awarded the Bourse d’Excellence Lavoisier (2002), the Award of the 9th Annual Symposium of the United Kingdom and Ireland Controlled Release Society (2003), the Biochemical Journal Young Investigator Award (2009), the Tom Gibson Memorial Award (2012), the Scientist Medal of the International Association of Advanced Materials (2021) and the Outstanding Woman Researcher in Nanomedicine award at the 7th Venus International Women Awards (2021) for her research. She also received the “Best Overall” Strathclyde Teaching Excellence Award (2013) for her teaching, was nominated 9 times since 2013 and was shortlisted in the category “Best in Faculty of Science” in 2015, 2018 and 2022. She is a Trustee of the British Society of Nanomedicine, Senior Editor of Journal of Interdisciplinary Nanomedicine, Editorial Advisory Board member of Biomaterials Science, Review Editor of Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology – Nanobiotechnology, and member of the Editorial Boards of 6 journals (Journal of Liposome Research, Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Journal of Nanotechnology: Nanomedicine & Nanobiotechnology, Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology, Pharmaceutics and Scientia Pharmaceutica).
Her research interests are:
• Design and development of novel tumour-targeted anti-cancer nanomedicines.
• Design and development of novel nanomedicines able to reach the brain after intravenous administration, with the ultimate aim to facilitate drug and gene delivery to brain tumours and neurodegenerative disorders.
Her research highlights include:
• Tumour regression after intravenous administration of a tumour-targeted dendriplex encoding TNFα (complete disappearance of 90% of the tumours)
• Tumour regression after intravenous administration of tumour-targeted vesicles entrapping tocotrienol (complete disappearance of 40% of the tumours) (doctoral work of Ms Ju Yen Fu)
• Tumour regression after intravenous administration of a tumour-targeted dendriplex encoding p73 (complete disappearance of 10% of the tumours)
• Tumour regression after intravenous administration of the green tea extract epigallocatechin gallate encapsulated in tumour-targeted vesicles (complete disappearance of 40% of the tumours)
• Regression of prostate tumours after intravenous administration of tumour-targeted dendriplexes encoding TNFα, TRAIL and IL-12 (complete disappearance of up to 60% of PC-3 tumours and up to 50% of DU145 tumours) (doctoral work of Mr Majed Al Robaian).
• Increase of gene expression in tumours by surface modification of polyethylenimine and polypropylenimine dendrimer with the amino acids arginine, lysine and leucine (doctoral work of Ms Hibah Aldawsari)
• Increase of gene expression in the brain following intravenous injection of transferrin-bearing dendriplex (at least twice higher than that of the unmodified dendriplex), while decreasing the non-specific gene expression in the lung. Gene expression was at least 3-fold higher in the brain than in any tested peripheral organs (doctoral work of Mr Sukrut Somani).
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Bharati Vidyapeeth college of pharmacy, kolhapur, maharashtra, India.
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Papers by Christine Dufès
Various polymers, including cationic polyamine polymers and dendrimeric polymers, are shown to po... more Various polymers, including cationic polyamine polymers and dendrimeric polymers, are shown to possess anti-proliferative activity, and may therefore be useful for treatment of disorders characterised by undesirable cellular proliferation such as neoplasms and tumours, inflammatory disorders (including autoimmune disorders), psoriasis and atherosclerosis. The polymers may be used alone as active agents, or as delivery vehicles for other therapeutic agents, such as drug molecules or nucleic acids for gene therapy. In such cases, the polymers' own intrinsic anti-tumour activity may complement the activity of the agent to be delivered
Nanoscale Advances, 2021
Emergence of surface-modified polyamine dendrimer-based vesicles (or dendrimersomes) as promising... more Emergence of surface-modified polyamine dendrimer-based vesicles (or dendrimersomes) as promising alternatives to lipid vesicles for biomedical applications.
International Journal of Nanomedicine, 2021
Background: Gold nanocages have been widely used as multifunctional platforms for drug and gene d... more Background: Gold nanocages have been widely used as multifunctional platforms for drug and gene delivery, as well as photothermal agents for cancer therapy. However, their potential as gene delivery systems for cancer treatment has been reported in combination with chemotherapeutics and photothermal therapy, but not in isolation so far. The purpose of this work was to investigate whether the conjugation of gold nanocages with the cancer targeting ligand lactoferrin, polyethylene glycol and polyethylenimine could lead to enhanced transfection efficiency on prostate cancer cells in vitro, without assistance of external stimulation. Methods: Novel lactoferrin-bearing gold nanocages conjugated to polyethylenimine and polyethylene glycol have been synthesized and characterized. Their transfection efficacy and cytotoxicity were assessed on PC-3 prostate cancer cell line following complexation with a plasmid DNA. Results: Lactoferrin-bearing gold nanocages, alone or conjugated with polyethylenimine and polyethylene glycol, were able to condense DNA at conjugate:DNA weight ratios 5:1 and higher. Among all gold conjugates, the highest gene expression was obtained following treatment with gold complex conjugated with polyethylenimine and lactoferrin, at weight ratio 40:1, which was 1.71-fold higher than with polyethylenimine. This might be due to the increased DNA cellular uptake observed with this conjugate, by up to 8.65-fold in comparison with naked DNA. Conclusion: Lactoferrin-bearing gold nanocages conjugates are highly promising gene delivery systems to prostate cancer cells.
International Journal of Nanomedicine, 2021
Background: Gold nanocages have been widely used as multifunctional platforms for drug and gene d... more Background: Gold nanocages have been widely used as multifunctional platforms for drug and gene delivery, as well as photothermal agents for cancer therapy. However, their potential as gene delivery systems for cancer treatment has been reported in combination with chemotherapeutics and photothermal therapy, but not in isolation so far. The purpose of this work was to investigate whether the conjugation of gold nanocages with the cancer targeting ligand lactoferrin, polyethylene glycol and polyethylenimine, could lead to enhanced transfection efficiency on prostate cancer cells in vitro, without assistance of external stimulation.
Methods: Novel lactoferrin-bearing gold nanocages conjugated to polyethylenimine and polyethylene glycol have been synthesized and characterized. Their transfection efficacy and cytotoxicity were assessed on PC-3 prostate cancer cell line following complexation with a plasmid DNA.
Results: Lactoferrin-bearing gold nanocages, alone or conjugated with polyethylenimine and polyethylene glycol, were able to condense DNA at conjugate: DNA weight ratios 10:1 and higher. Among all gold conjugates, the highest gene expression was obtained following treatment with gold complex conjugated with polyethylenimine and lactoferrin, at weight ratio 40:1, which was 1.71-fold higher than with polyethylenimine. This might be due to the increased DNA cellular uptake observed with this conjugate, by up to 8.65-fold in comparison with naked DNA.
Conclusion: Lactoferrin-bearing gold nanocages conjugates are highly promising gene delivery systems to prostate cancer cells.
International Journal of Nanomedicine, 2022
Background: The use of gene therapy for treating prostate cancer is hampered by the lack of effec... more Background: The use of gene therapy for treating prostate cancer is hampered by the lack of effective nanocarriers that can selectively deliver therapeutic genes to cancer cells. In order to overcome this, we hypothesize that conjugating lactoferrin, a tumor-targeting ligand, and the diaminobutyric polypropylenimine dendrimer to gold nanocages, followed by complexation with a plasmid DNA, would enhance gene expression and anti-proliferation activity in prostate cancer cells without the use of external stimuli. Methods: Novel gold nanocages bearing lactoferrin and conjugated to diaminobutyric polypropylenimine dendrimer (AuNCs-DAB-Lf) were synthesized and characterized. Following complexation with a plasmid DNA, their gene expression, cellular uptake and anti-proliferative efficacies were evaluated on PC-3 prostate cancer cells. Results: AuNCs-DAB-Lf was able to complex DNA at conjugate: DNA weight ratios 5:1 onwards. Gene expression was at its highest after treatment with AuNCs-DAB-Lf at a weight ratio of 10:1, as a result of a significant increase in DNA uptake mediated by the conjugate at that ratio on PC-3 cells. Consequently, the anti-proliferative activity of AuNCs-DAB-Lf-DNA encoding TNFα was significantly improved by up to 9-fold compared with DAB dendriplex encoding TNFα. Conclusion: Lactoferrin-bearing dendrimer-conjugated gold nanocages are highly promising gene delivery systems for the treatment of prostate cancer.
Nanoscale Advances, 2021
For decades, self-assembled lipid vesicles have been widely used in clinics as nanoscale delivery... more For decades, self-assembled lipid vesicles have been widely used in clinics as nanoscale delivery systems for various biomedical applications, including treatment of various diseases. Due to their core-shell architecture and versatile nature, they have been successfully used as carriers for the delivery of a wide range of therapeutic cargos, including drugs and nucleic acids, in cancer treatment. Recently, surface-modified polyamine dendrimer-based vesicles, or dendrimersomes, have emerged as promising alternatives to lipid vesicles for various biomedical applications, due to their ease of synthesis, non-immunogenicity, stability in circulation and lower size polydispersity. This mini-review provides an overview of the recent advances resulting from the use of biomimetic hydrophobically-modified polyamine-based dendrimersomes towards biomedical applications, focusing mainly on the two most widely used polyamine dendrimers, namely polyamidoamine (PAMAM) and poly(propylene imine) (PPI) dendrimers.
Pharmaceutics, 2022
With the launch of the UK Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products ... more With the launch of the UK Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products Focus Group in late 2020, a webinar series reviewing the current and emerging trends in cell and gene therapy was held virtually in May 2021. This webinar series was timely given the recent withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union and the global COVID-19 pandemic impacting all sectors of the pharmaceutical sciences research landscape globally and in the UK. Delegates from the academic, industry, regulatory and NHS sectors attended the session where challenges and opportunities in the development and clinical implementation of cell and gene therapies were discussed. Globally, the cell and gene therapy market has reached a value of 4.3 billion dollars in 2020, having increased at a compound annual growth rate of 25.5% since 2015. This webinar series captured all the major developments in this rapidly evolving area and highlighted emerging concepts warranting cross-sector ef...
Therapeutic delivery, 2011
Tocotrienol, a member of the vitamin E family of compounds, is currently receiving increased atte... more Tocotrienol, a member of the vitamin E family of compounds, is currently receiving increased attention owing to its highly promising anticancer effects. However, its potential in cancer therapy is limited by its poor bioavailability and its inability to specifically reach tumors at therapeutic concentrations after intravenous administration. In order to address these problems, various delivery strategies have been proposed, such as the inclusion of tocotrienol in gamma-cyclodextrins, prodrugs and emulsions, and entrapment in lipid nanoparticles and vesicles. Among these approaches, we have demonstrated that the entrapment of tocotrienol within vesicles bearing transferrin, whose receptors are overexpressed on numerous cancer cells, significantly improved the uptake by cancer cells overexpressing transferrin receptors. Consequently, the intravenous administration of tocotrienol entrapped in transferrin-bearing vesicles led to tumor regression and even complete tumor suppression in so...
Therapeutic Delivery, 2011
The Strathprints institutional repository (http://strathprints.strath.ac.uk) is a digital archive... more The Strathprints institutional repository (http://strathprints.strath.ac.uk) is a digital archive of University of Strathclyde research outputs. It has been developed to disseminate open access research outputs, expose data about those outputs, and enable the management and persistent access to Strathclyde's intellectual output.
Nanomedicine, 2014
Nanomedicine 2014 Edinburgh, UK, 26–27 March 2014 The British Society for Nanomedicine (BSNM) [ 1... more Nanomedicine 2014 Edinburgh, UK, 26–27 March 2014 The British Society for Nanomedicine (BSNM) [ 1 ], in collaboration with SELECTBIO, organized Nanomedicine 2014. BSNM is a registered charity created to allow open access for industry, academia, clinicians and the public to news and details of ongoing nanomedicine research. The Nanomedicine 2014 program provided insight across a number of emerging nanotechnologies spanning treatment to diagnostics. A key objective of the meeting was provision of opportunities to build collaborations and rationalize nanoenabled healthcare solutions.
Pharmaceutics, 2022
The formation of a protein layer “corona” on the nanoparticle surface upon entry into a biologica... more The formation of a protein layer “corona” on the nanoparticle surface upon entry into a biological environment was shown to strongly influence the interactions with cells, especially affecting the uptake of nanomedicines. In this work, we present the impact of the protein corona on the uptake of PEGylated zein micelles by cancer cells, macrophages, and dendritic cells. Zein was successfully conjugated with poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) of varying chain lengths (5K and 10K) and assembled into micelles. Our results demonstrate that PEGylation conferred stealth effects to the zein micelles. The presence of human plasma did not impact the uptake levels of the micelles by melanoma cancer cells, regardless of the PEG chain length used. In contrast, it decreased the uptake by macrophages and dendritic cells. These results therefore make PEGylated zein micelles promising as potential drug delivery systems for cancer therapy.
International Journal of Nanomedicine, 2021
Background: Plumbagin, a naphthoquinone extracted from the officinal leadwort presenting promisin... more Background: Plumbagin, a naphthoquinone extracted from the officinal leadwort presenting promising anti-cancer properties, has its therapeutic potential limited by its inability to reach tumors in a specific way at a therapeutic concentration following systemic injection. The purpose of this study is to assess whether a novel tumor-targeted, lipid-polymer hybrid nanoparticle formulation of plumbagin would suppress the growth of B16-F10 melanoma in vitro and in vivo. Methods: Novel lipid-polymer hybrid nanoparticles entrapping plumbagin and conjugated with transferrin, whose receptors are present in abundance on many cancer cells, have been developed. Their cellular uptake, anti-proliferative and apoptosis efficacy were assessed on various cancer cell lines in vitro. Their therapeutic efficacy was evaluated in vivo after tail vein injection to mice bearing B16-F10 melanoma tumors. Results: The transferrin-bearing lipid-polymer hybrid nanoparticles loaded with plumbagin resulted in the disappearance of 40% of B16-F10 tumors and regression of 10% of the tumors following intravenous administration. They were well tolerated by the mice. Conclusion: These therapeutic effects, therefore, make transferrin-bearing lipid-polymer hybrid nanoparticles entrapping plumbagin a highly promising anti-cancer nanomedicine.
Journal of Controlled Release, 2015
The possibility of using gene therapy for the treatment of brain diseases such as brain cancer, A... more The possibility of using gene therapy for the treatment of brain diseases such as brain cancer, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, is currently hampered by the lack of gene delivery systems able to cross the blood-brain barrier and deliver DNA to the brain following intravenous administration. On the basis that lactoferrin can effectively reach the brain by using specific receptors for crossing the blood-brain barrier, we propose to investigate if a lactoferrin-bearing generation 3diaminobutyric polypropylenimine (DAB) dendrimer would allow the transport of plasmid DNA to the brain after intravenous administration. In this work, we demonstrated that the conjugation of lactoferrin to the dendrimer led to an enhanced DNA uptake by 2.1-fold in bEnd.3 murine brain capillary endothelial cells compared to the unmodified dendriplex in vitro. In vivo, the intravenous administration of lactoferrin-bearing DAB dendriplex resulted in a significantly increased gene expression in the brain, b...
Nanoscale, 2018
Stimuli-responsive nanocarriers have attracted increasing attention for drug and gene delivery in... more Stimuli-responsive nanocarriers have attracted increasing attention for drug and gene delivery in cancer therapy. The present study reports the development of redox-sensitive dendrimersomes made of disulphide-linked cholesterol-bearing PEGylated dendrimers, that...
Journal of controlled release : official journal of the Controlled Release Society, Jan 28, 2017
The therapeutic potential of tocotrienol, a member of the vitamin E family of compounds with pote... more The therapeutic potential of tocotrienol, a member of the vitamin E family of compounds with potent in vitro anti-cancer properties, is limited by its inability to specifically reach tumors following intravenous administration. The purpose of this study is to determine whether a novel tumor-targeted vesicular formulation of tocotrienol would suppress the growth of A431 epidermoid carcinoma and B16-F10 melanoma in vitro and in vivo. In this work, we demonstrated that novel transferrin-bearing multilamellar vesicles entrapping α-T3 resulted in a dramatically improved (by at least 52-fold) therapeutic efficacy in vitro on A431 cell line, compared to the free drug. In addition, the intravenous administration of tocotrienol entrapped in transferrin-bearing vesicles resulted in tumor suppression for 30% of A431 and 60% of B16-F10 tumors, without visible toxicity. Mouse survival was enhanced by >13days compared to controls administered with the drug solution only. This tumor-targeted, t...
Journal of Controlled Release, 2015
Nanomedicine, 2015
The Strathprints institutional repository (https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk) is a digital archiv... more The Strathprints institutional repository (https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk) is a digital archive of University of Strathclyde research outputs. It has been developed to disseminate open access research outputs, expose data about those outputs, and enable the management and persistent access to Strathclyde's intellectual output.
Various polymers, including cationic polyamine polymers and dendrimeric polymers, are shown to po... more Various polymers, including cationic polyamine polymers and dendrimeric polymers, are shown to possess anti-proliferative activity, and may therefore be useful for treatment of disorders characterised by undesirable cellular proliferation such as neoplasms and tumours, inflammatory disorders (including autoimmune disorders), psoriasis and atherosclerosis. The polymers may be used alone as active agents, or as delivery vehicles for other therapeutic agents, such as drug molecules or nucleic acids for gene therapy. In such cases, the polymers' own intrinsic anti-tumour activity may complement the activity of the agent to be delivered
Nanoscale Advances, 2021
Emergence of surface-modified polyamine dendrimer-based vesicles (or dendrimersomes) as promising... more Emergence of surface-modified polyamine dendrimer-based vesicles (or dendrimersomes) as promising alternatives to lipid vesicles for biomedical applications.
International Journal of Nanomedicine, 2021
Background: Gold nanocages have been widely used as multifunctional platforms for drug and gene d... more Background: Gold nanocages have been widely used as multifunctional platforms for drug and gene delivery, as well as photothermal agents for cancer therapy. However, their potential as gene delivery systems for cancer treatment has been reported in combination with chemotherapeutics and photothermal therapy, but not in isolation so far. The purpose of this work was to investigate whether the conjugation of gold nanocages with the cancer targeting ligand lactoferrin, polyethylene glycol and polyethylenimine could lead to enhanced transfection efficiency on prostate cancer cells in vitro, without assistance of external stimulation. Methods: Novel lactoferrin-bearing gold nanocages conjugated to polyethylenimine and polyethylene glycol have been synthesized and characterized. Their transfection efficacy and cytotoxicity were assessed on PC-3 prostate cancer cell line following complexation with a plasmid DNA. Results: Lactoferrin-bearing gold nanocages, alone or conjugated with polyethylenimine and polyethylene glycol, were able to condense DNA at conjugate:DNA weight ratios 5:1 and higher. Among all gold conjugates, the highest gene expression was obtained following treatment with gold complex conjugated with polyethylenimine and lactoferrin, at weight ratio 40:1, which was 1.71-fold higher than with polyethylenimine. This might be due to the increased DNA cellular uptake observed with this conjugate, by up to 8.65-fold in comparison with naked DNA. Conclusion: Lactoferrin-bearing gold nanocages conjugates are highly promising gene delivery systems to prostate cancer cells.
International Journal of Nanomedicine, 2021
Background: Gold nanocages have been widely used as multifunctional platforms for drug and gene d... more Background: Gold nanocages have been widely used as multifunctional platforms for drug and gene delivery, as well as photothermal agents for cancer therapy. However, their potential as gene delivery systems for cancer treatment has been reported in combination with chemotherapeutics and photothermal therapy, but not in isolation so far. The purpose of this work was to investigate whether the conjugation of gold nanocages with the cancer targeting ligand lactoferrin, polyethylene glycol and polyethylenimine, could lead to enhanced transfection efficiency on prostate cancer cells in vitro, without assistance of external stimulation.
Methods: Novel lactoferrin-bearing gold nanocages conjugated to polyethylenimine and polyethylene glycol have been synthesized and characterized. Their transfection efficacy and cytotoxicity were assessed on PC-3 prostate cancer cell line following complexation with a plasmid DNA.
Results: Lactoferrin-bearing gold nanocages, alone or conjugated with polyethylenimine and polyethylene glycol, were able to condense DNA at conjugate: DNA weight ratios 10:1 and higher. Among all gold conjugates, the highest gene expression was obtained following treatment with gold complex conjugated with polyethylenimine and lactoferrin, at weight ratio 40:1, which was 1.71-fold higher than with polyethylenimine. This might be due to the increased DNA cellular uptake observed with this conjugate, by up to 8.65-fold in comparison with naked DNA.
Conclusion: Lactoferrin-bearing gold nanocages conjugates are highly promising gene delivery systems to prostate cancer cells.
International Journal of Nanomedicine, 2022
Background: The use of gene therapy for treating prostate cancer is hampered by the lack of effec... more Background: The use of gene therapy for treating prostate cancer is hampered by the lack of effective nanocarriers that can selectively deliver therapeutic genes to cancer cells. In order to overcome this, we hypothesize that conjugating lactoferrin, a tumor-targeting ligand, and the diaminobutyric polypropylenimine dendrimer to gold nanocages, followed by complexation with a plasmid DNA, would enhance gene expression and anti-proliferation activity in prostate cancer cells without the use of external stimuli. Methods: Novel gold nanocages bearing lactoferrin and conjugated to diaminobutyric polypropylenimine dendrimer (AuNCs-DAB-Lf) were synthesized and characterized. Following complexation with a plasmid DNA, their gene expression, cellular uptake and anti-proliferative efficacies were evaluated on PC-3 prostate cancer cells. Results: AuNCs-DAB-Lf was able to complex DNA at conjugate: DNA weight ratios 5:1 onwards. Gene expression was at its highest after treatment with AuNCs-DAB-Lf at a weight ratio of 10:1, as a result of a significant increase in DNA uptake mediated by the conjugate at that ratio on PC-3 cells. Consequently, the anti-proliferative activity of AuNCs-DAB-Lf-DNA encoding TNFα was significantly improved by up to 9-fold compared with DAB dendriplex encoding TNFα. Conclusion: Lactoferrin-bearing dendrimer-conjugated gold nanocages are highly promising gene delivery systems for the treatment of prostate cancer.
Nanoscale Advances, 2021
For decades, self-assembled lipid vesicles have been widely used in clinics as nanoscale delivery... more For decades, self-assembled lipid vesicles have been widely used in clinics as nanoscale delivery systems for various biomedical applications, including treatment of various diseases. Due to their core-shell architecture and versatile nature, they have been successfully used as carriers for the delivery of a wide range of therapeutic cargos, including drugs and nucleic acids, in cancer treatment. Recently, surface-modified polyamine dendrimer-based vesicles, or dendrimersomes, have emerged as promising alternatives to lipid vesicles for various biomedical applications, due to their ease of synthesis, non-immunogenicity, stability in circulation and lower size polydispersity. This mini-review provides an overview of the recent advances resulting from the use of biomimetic hydrophobically-modified polyamine-based dendrimersomes towards biomedical applications, focusing mainly on the two most widely used polyamine dendrimers, namely polyamidoamine (PAMAM) and poly(propylene imine) (PPI) dendrimers.
Pharmaceutics, 2022
With the launch of the UK Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products ... more With the launch of the UK Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products Focus Group in late 2020, a webinar series reviewing the current and emerging trends in cell and gene therapy was held virtually in May 2021. This webinar series was timely given the recent withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union and the global COVID-19 pandemic impacting all sectors of the pharmaceutical sciences research landscape globally and in the UK. Delegates from the academic, industry, regulatory and NHS sectors attended the session where challenges and opportunities in the development and clinical implementation of cell and gene therapies were discussed. Globally, the cell and gene therapy market has reached a value of 4.3 billion dollars in 2020, having increased at a compound annual growth rate of 25.5% since 2015. This webinar series captured all the major developments in this rapidly evolving area and highlighted emerging concepts warranting cross-sector ef...
Therapeutic delivery, 2011
Tocotrienol, a member of the vitamin E family of compounds, is currently receiving increased atte... more Tocotrienol, a member of the vitamin E family of compounds, is currently receiving increased attention owing to its highly promising anticancer effects. However, its potential in cancer therapy is limited by its poor bioavailability and its inability to specifically reach tumors at therapeutic concentrations after intravenous administration. In order to address these problems, various delivery strategies have been proposed, such as the inclusion of tocotrienol in gamma-cyclodextrins, prodrugs and emulsions, and entrapment in lipid nanoparticles and vesicles. Among these approaches, we have demonstrated that the entrapment of tocotrienol within vesicles bearing transferrin, whose receptors are overexpressed on numerous cancer cells, significantly improved the uptake by cancer cells overexpressing transferrin receptors. Consequently, the intravenous administration of tocotrienol entrapped in transferrin-bearing vesicles led to tumor regression and even complete tumor suppression in so...
Therapeutic Delivery, 2011
The Strathprints institutional repository (http://strathprints.strath.ac.uk) is a digital archive... more The Strathprints institutional repository (http://strathprints.strath.ac.uk) is a digital archive of University of Strathclyde research outputs. It has been developed to disseminate open access research outputs, expose data about those outputs, and enable the management and persistent access to Strathclyde's intellectual output.
Nanomedicine, 2014
Nanomedicine 2014 Edinburgh, UK, 26–27 March 2014 The British Society for Nanomedicine (BSNM) [ 1... more Nanomedicine 2014 Edinburgh, UK, 26–27 March 2014 The British Society for Nanomedicine (BSNM) [ 1 ], in collaboration with SELECTBIO, organized Nanomedicine 2014. BSNM is a registered charity created to allow open access for industry, academia, clinicians and the public to news and details of ongoing nanomedicine research. The Nanomedicine 2014 program provided insight across a number of emerging nanotechnologies spanning treatment to diagnostics. A key objective of the meeting was provision of opportunities to build collaborations and rationalize nanoenabled healthcare solutions.
Pharmaceutics, 2022
The formation of a protein layer “corona” on the nanoparticle surface upon entry into a biologica... more The formation of a protein layer “corona” on the nanoparticle surface upon entry into a biological environment was shown to strongly influence the interactions with cells, especially affecting the uptake of nanomedicines. In this work, we present the impact of the protein corona on the uptake of PEGylated zein micelles by cancer cells, macrophages, and dendritic cells. Zein was successfully conjugated with poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) of varying chain lengths (5K and 10K) and assembled into micelles. Our results demonstrate that PEGylation conferred stealth effects to the zein micelles. The presence of human plasma did not impact the uptake levels of the micelles by melanoma cancer cells, regardless of the PEG chain length used. In contrast, it decreased the uptake by macrophages and dendritic cells. These results therefore make PEGylated zein micelles promising as potential drug delivery systems for cancer therapy.
International Journal of Nanomedicine, 2021
Background: Plumbagin, a naphthoquinone extracted from the officinal leadwort presenting promisin... more Background: Plumbagin, a naphthoquinone extracted from the officinal leadwort presenting promising anti-cancer properties, has its therapeutic potential limited by its inability to reach tumors in a specific way at a therapeutic concentration following systemic injection. The purpose of this study is to assess whether a novel tumor-targeted, lipid-polymer hybrid nanoparticle formulation of plumbagin would suppress the growth of B16-F10 melanoma in vitro and in vivo. Methods: Novel lipid-polymer hybrid nanoparticles entrapping plumbagin and conjugated with transferrin, whose receptors are present in abundance on many cancer cells, have been developed. Their cellular uptake, anti-proliferative and apoptosis efficacy were assessed on various cancer cell lines in vitro. Their therapeutic efficacy was evaluated in vivo after tail vein injection to mice bearing B16-F10 melanoma tumors. Results: The transferrin-bearing lipid-polymer hybrid nanoparticles loaded with plumbagin resulted in the disappearance of 40% of B16-F10 tumors and regression of 10% of the tumors following intravenous administration. They were well tolerated by the mice. Conclusion: These therapeutic effects, therefore, make transferrin-bearing lipid-polymer hybrid nanoparticles entrapping plumbagin a highly promising anti-cancer nanomedicine.
Journal of Controlled Release, 2015
The possibility of using gene therapy for the treatment of brain diseases such as brain cancer, A... more The possibility of using gene therapy for the treatment of brain diseases such as brain cancer, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, is currently hampered by the lack of gene delivery systems able to cross the blood-brain barrier and deliver DNA to the brain following intravenous administration. On the basis that lactoferrin can effectively reach the brain by using specific receptors for crossing the blood-brain barrier, we propose to investigate if a lactoferrin-bearing generation 3diaminobutyric polypropylenimine (DAB) dendrimer would allow the transport of plasmid DNA to the brain after intravenous administration. In this work, we demonstrated that the conjugation of lactoferrin to the dendrimer led to an enhanced DNA uptake by 2.1-fold in bEnd.3 murine brain capillary endothelial cells compared to the unmodified dendriplex in vitro. In vivo, the intravenous administration of lactoferrin-bearing DAB dendriplex resulted in a significantly increased gene expression in the brain, b...
Nanoscale, 2018
Stimuli-responsive nanocarriers have attracted increasing attention for drug and gene delivery in... more Stimuli-responsive nanocarriers have attracted increasing attention for drug and gene delivery in cancer therapy. The present study reports the development of redox-sensitive dendrimersomes made of disulphide-linked cholesterol-bearing PEGylated dendrimers, that...
Journal of controlled release : official journal of the Controlled Release Society, Jan 28, 2017
The therapeutic potential of tocotrienol, a member of the vitamin E family of compounds with pote... more The therapeutic potential of tocotrienol, a member of the vitamin E family of compounds with potent in vitro anti-cancer properties, is limited by its inability to specifically reach tumors following intravenous administration. The purpose of this study is to determine whether a novel tumor-targeted vesicular formulation of tocotrienol would suppress the growth of A431 epidermoid carcinoma and B16-F10 melanoma in vitro and in vivo. In this work, we demonstrated that novel transferrin-bearing multilamellar vesicles entrapping α-T3 resulted in a dramatically improved (by at least 52-fold) therapeutic efficacy in vitro on A431 cell line, compared to the free drug. In addition, the intravenous administration of tocotrienol entrapped in transferrin-bearing vesicles resulted in tumor suppression for 30% of A431 and 60% of B16-F10 tumors, without visible toxicity. Mouse survival was enhanced by >13days compared to controls administered with the drug solution only. This tumor-targeted, t...
Journal of Controlled Release, 2015
Nanomedicine, 2015
The Strathprints institutional repository (https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk) is a digital archiv... more The Strathprints institutional repository (https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk) is a digital archive of University of Strathclyde research outputs. It has been developed to disseminate open access research outputs, expose data about those outputs, and enable the management and persistent access to Strathclyde's intellectual output.