Nanomedicine lecture series: nanotechnology in oncology
Wednesday, 2 November 2016, Manchester Cancer Research Centre (MCRC)
This event was the inaugural of our Manchester Nanomedicine Lecture Series and showcased renowned international speakers from the areas of oncology, nanomedicine and ethics attempting to offer a perspective on how nanotechnology has and can contribute to the development of advanced cancer therapeutics and diagnostics.
Find out more about the speakers and see pictures and tweet from the day below.
You can also download materials that were available on the day:
- Nanomedicine Network brochure (PDF, 520KB)
- Nanomedicine Network launch event agenda (PDF, 298KB)
Speakers
The event included the following international keynote speakers.
- David A Scheinberg, MD, PhD
Talk: Targeting cancers with antibodies and nanomaterials
Antibodies can serve as targeting vehicles for a variety of warheads or more complex nanomaterial-based structures to deliver cytotoxic agents or other biologically active molecules to cancer cells and normal cells in live animals and humans for therapuetic effects.
David A Scheinberg is currently Vincent Astor Chair, and Chairman, Molecular Pharmacology, Sloan Kettering Institute. He founded and Chairs the Experimental Therapeutics Center, and founded and was Chair of the Nanotechnology Center from 2010 to 2014.
He is Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology and Co-chair of the Pharmacology graduate programme at Weill-Cornell University Medical College and Professor in the Gerstner-Sloan Kettering Graduate School at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
He is a founder and a Director of the Therapeutics Discovery Institute, a non-profit drug discovery corporation formed with Weill Cornell Medical College, Rockefeller University and Sloan Kettering Institute.
- Francis Lévi, MD, PhD
Talk: Clock-based chemotherapy delivery
Improved treatment selectivity is especially relevant in oncology, because of the tight efficacy/toxicity balance of anticancer medications, and the need for sparing host tissues from adverse lesions despite prolonged treatment durations.
Advances in molecular medicine have further led us to develop tools for delivering the right drug at the right dose for the right patient. Yet, a network of molecular circadian clocks moderates pharmacologic mechanisms and dose-response effects through redundant mechanisms.
The existence of such a coordinated Circadian Timing System emphasises the need for treatment timing specifications, so that personalised and precision cancer medicine reaches full effectiveness.
Francis will review the evidence, and discuss how nanoparticles embedded cancer therapies could fit in these circadian concepts and improve patient outcomes.
Francis Lévi is Clinical Professor of Biomedicine-Medical Oncology at the University of Warwick Medical School and Honorary Consultant at the Cancer Center, UHB Queen Elisabeth, and coordinates the Warwick-INSERM European Associated Laboratory, Personalising Cancer Chronotherapy through Systems Medicine (C2SysMed).
His current research focuses on the systems medicine approach to the interactions between the circadian timing system, the cell cycle and drug metabolism, and their implications for improving cancer therapy and health-related quality of life.
- Bernadette Bensaude Vincent
Talk: War on cancer or house of cancer? Reflections on the impact of metaphors
Trained as a philosopher and historian of science, Bernadette Bensaude Vincent is currently a professor at the University Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, and the director of the CETCOPRA.
Her main research interests span from the history and philosophy of chemical sciences, the science/public relations and the French tradition of epistemology. Beginning in 2000, her research shifted towards contemporary technologies; materials science and engineering, nanotechnology, synthetic biology.
The link between the early researches and the current programmes is the question of the hybrid ontological status of materials, at the intersection between nature, artefact and society.