Spotlight on a Technion Australia priority project
In most of the Western World, cancer is the primary cause of death in children over the age of one year. Existing treatments for adult cancer patients are not particularly effective for children. This is because chemotherapeutic drugs have different effects on children’s physiology, which is quite dissimilar from adult physiology. We will investigate for the first time an innovative nanotechnology drug delivery strategy of sugar-decorated polymeric nanoparticles loaded with drugs that target specific molecular pathways in two deadly pediatric musculoskeletal cancers that have very bad prognosis and frequent relapse due to chemotherapy resistance – rhabdomyosarcoma and Ewing sarcoma. We believe the results of this research will provide solid background for the planning and conduction of the first clinical trials.
Prof. Alejandro Sosnik (right), lead researcher from the Technion recently met with Prof. Michelle Haber (centre), Executive Director at the Children’s Cancer Institute (CCI) and Ori Danieli (left), Executive Director at Technion Australia. Technion Australia and CCI are in the process of forming a collaborative partnership between the two outstanding institutions.