CENTRO DI RIFERIMENTO ONCOLOGICO
Technology Transfer Opportunities Contact: Ermes Mestroni emestroni@cro.it
MOLECULAR NANOTECHNOLOGY FOR HEALTH APPLICATIONS Technology Overview Nanotechnology allows the manipulation of matter at the atomic and molecular scale, and has the potential to revolutionise healthcare by providing new platforms for tumour diagnostics, prognostics and treatment. The awareness of a widespread need for improved tumour markers enabling early diagnosis, as well as to giving insight into pathogenesis, and identifying potential new treatments, has been recently highlighted. In fact, prognostic information relative to cancer disease is expected to allow the definition of effective and personalized treatment of patients. The objective of this interdisciplinary research team is the generation in the next years of point-of-care-testing (POCT)dedicated devices for cancer patients, to: (i) Sensitively measure in real-time the concentrations of circulating biomarkers, currently used in the clinical practice, and (ii) to perform therapeutic drug monitoring Courtesy of Mauro Melli (TDM). (M. Melli et al. ACS Nano 2011) Advantages √ Micro pillars technology for the real time detection of protein levels in the biological fluids (under development - see artwork); √ Combined microfluidics and atomic force microscopy techniques for the sensitive detection of biomarker levels in small tissue samples such as circulating tumour cells; √ Basic and Translational research in the field of molecular and cellular biology, animal modelling, bio-analytical, pharmacogenetics, proteomics, and nanotechnology including expertise in molecular physics, physical chemistry and surface functionalization and nanomanipulation; √ Phase I-II clinical trials based on pharmacogenetics data.