M.Sc Thesis | |
M.Sc Student | Avrashami Maytal |
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Subject | Development of Personalized Nanomedicine for Liver Cancer |
Department | Department of Biomedical Engineering | Supervisor | DR. Yosef Shamay |
We hypothesized that anti-cancer drugs which induce immunogenic cell death (ICD) can effectively synergize with ICIs when they are self-assembled in tumor targeted nanoparticles (NPs), sparing immune cells from cytotoxicity and systemic side effects. Previous work showed that a subset of sulfated indocyanine dyes can self-assemble with hydrophobic drugs to form stable NPs with high drug loading that can be effectively delivered to liver tumors in mice. In this thesis, we identified and precipitated new drug candidates with novel dye stabilizers in NPs to combine with ICIs. We evaluated their efficacy in vitro using novel 3D co-culture models developed in the lab and in vivo biodistribution and efficacy using immunocompetent autochthonous murine liver cancer models.