Marion Pang

Prostate cancer is a highly prevalent and fatal disease – it is estimated that 1 in every 6 men would be diagnosed with the disease in their lifetime. The disease is the most common non-cutaneous cancer accounting for >1.3 million diagnoses and >10% of deaths globally in 2018. However, current forms of treatment such as radical prostatectomy and radiation therapy result in undesirable side effects such as urinary issues, erectile dysfunction and lifelong incontinence. As an alternative, applications of nanotechnology have enabled the development of nanoparticle (NP) therapeutic carriers suited for the delivery of chemotherapeutics in prostate cancer therapy. This treatment offers patients a safe and effective targeted therapy option that would preserve critical structures within the prostate, while avoiding undesired side effects. Here, we present a method to synthesize enhanced, non-toxic, biodegradable NPs to target and improve the efficiency of gene delivery in order to better treat prostate cancer by developing a high-throughput screening method to screen through large libraries of functionalized particles.

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