18^th Annual Pharma Middle East Congress

Biography

Biography: Hashem O. Alsaab

Abstract

Several cancer immunotherapeutic approaches have been recently introduced into the clinics and they have shown remarkable therapeutic potentials. The groundbreaking cancer immunotherapeutic agents function as a stimulant or modulator of the body immune system to fight against or treat cancers. Although targeted immunotherapies such as immune checkpoint inhibitors (CTLA-4 or PD-1/PD-L1), DNA vaccination and CAR-T therapy are revolutionizing cancer treatment, the delivery efficacy can be further improved while their off-target toxicity can be mitigated through nanotechnology approaches. Nanomedicines can be multifunctional drug delivery agents for cancer therapies. However, they have faced several challenges in clinical trials owing to poor targeting ability, insufficient tumour penetration, difficulty in the synthesis and scale up, and limited understanding of interactions between a tumour and nanoparticles. In this regard, tumour multicomponent targeting drug delivery systems are a rational approach to developing tumour-site-specific therapeutics. The nanoparticles can be co-loaded with drugs, genes and imaging agents, surface decorated with varying targeting ligands that can home to varying tumours and/or a tumour multicomponent. Recent research has demonstrated that nanotechnology has multifaceted role for (i) reeducating tumour-associated macrophages (TAM) to function as tumour suppressor agent, (ii) serving as an efficient alternative for Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR)-T cell generation and transduction, and (iii) selective knockdown of Kras oncogene addiction by nano-Crisper-Cas9 delivery system. The function of host immune stimulatory signals and tumour immunotherapies can further be improved by repurposing of nanomedicine platform. This presentation will summarize the role of multifunctional polymeric, lipid, metallic and cell-based nanoparticles for improving current immunotherapy