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New Nanoparticle Therapy Appears More Effective Than Standard Therapy at Treating Aggressive Breast Cancer

Thursday, January 16, 2020

Experimental Nanoformulation Outperforms FDA-Approved Treatment for Metastatic Breast Cancer, Increasing Survival in Animal Studies

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) developed a new nanoparticle drug formulation that targets a specific receptor on cancer cells and appears to be more effective than a standard nanoparticle therapy currently on the market to treat metastatic breast cancer, according to a study published today in the journal Science Advances. The new ‘DART’ nanoparticles bypass healthy cells and tissues and bind to tumor cells, dispersing evenly throughout the tumor while releasing the chemotherapy drug paclitaxel.

“The marketed drug Abraxane, a nanoformulation containing paclitaxel that is currently used to treat women with aggressive breast cancer, is an effective agent, but it was not designed to selectively deliver paclitaxel to only the cancerous cells within the body,” said study corresponding co-author Jeffrey Winkles, PhD, a Professor of Surgery at UMSOM. “Our DART nanoparticle specifically targets the Fn14 receptor found abundantly on breast cancer cells; it uses this receptor to gain entry through the plasma membrane and deliver the drug to destroy the cancer.” Dr. Winkles’ group discovered the Fn14 receptor and described its potential as a target for new therapeutics more than a decade ago.

Read the full story from the University of Maryland School of Medicine.