Dr Guillaume Collet

From

Center for Molecular Biophysics (CBM) / CNRS - FR

In residence at

Center for Molecular Biophysics (CBM) / CNRS - FR

Host scientist

Prof. Stéphane Petoud

PROJECT

Earlier tumor diagnostic combined with radio-preconditioning in cancer therapy : a novel near-infrared emitting nanomofs for oxygen delivery

Diagnostic and therapy are closely related to each other since an early detection of a pathology offers a better chance to set a treatment at a time it is the most efficient. The concept of theranostic agents introduced to address this need by combining both diagnostic and therapy on the same entity is suffering of limitations that are mainly due to the off-targeting induced toxicity. 

To revisit this concept, we propose to create a tumor-targeted metal-organic frameworks (MOF) as a new generation of theranostic agents.

A remarkable property of MOFs is their crystalline rigid organization including pores that can be loaded with biologically relevant gases such as O2. Relatively harmless by itself, this original payload once delivered to a hypoxic tumor will reinforce radiotherapies that require O2 to generate the reactive species that will promote the eradication of tumor cells. Alternatively, to commonly described theranostic agents carrying an active drug, this innovative nanomaterial will be able to specifically precondition the tumor microenvironment to reinforce radiotherapies.

Moreover, as intrinsic properties the proposed nanoMOFs will operate as near-infrared (NIR) emitting imaging agent, providing a detection together with a tracking modality of the targeted compounds. These luminescent nanoMOFs will be created from the tridimensional assembly of NIR luminescent lanthanides (light emitting elements) coordinated and sensitized with antennae building block (light absorbing elements). Structures of nanoMOFs will provide a high density of absorbing and emitting moieties per unit volume resulting in a strong signal enhancement.

The successful completion of this project will result in the creation of a novel NIR emitting lanthanide-based nanoMOF offering unprecedented sensitivity for tumor detection combined with tumor radiotherapy.
This project will be conducted in the Petoud group, two members of which obtained their permanent positions through Le Studium.