On Oct. 1, 2015, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) awarded a $2.8 million grant five-year grant to researchers at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University who were developing nanoparticles to treat pancreatic cancer, one of the most deadly cancers.

The Innovative Research in Cancer Nanotechnology program project grant will support the research team to engineer theranostic magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles for use in nanotechnology enhanced targeted therapy and image guided drug delivery (thera – nostics).

The researchers’ primary aim is to overcome a major barrier to treatment in pancreatic cancer – the stroma of pancreatic tumors. Stroma is the connective tissue that supports organs and provides nutrients and regulatory signals to cells, but tumor stroma becomes dense and fibrotic in pancreatic cancer, creating an obstacle to drug delivery and a micro-environment to support the aggressive nature of cancer cells. 

Principal investigators for the $2.8 million grant are Lily Yang, MD, PhD, Emory professor of surgery and radiology and the Nancy Panoz Chair of Surgery in Cancer Research, and Hui Mao, PhD, professor of radiology at Emory School of Medicine and biomedical engineering at Emory and Georgia Tech, and head of Emory’s functional-molecular imaging and nanotechnology laboratory. Yang is a member of the Cancer Cell Biology Program at Winship, and Mao is a member of Winship’s Discovery and Developmental Therapeutics research program.

“Our team plans to create a new generation of “smart” and multifunctional nanoparticle drugs that have the ability to penetrate tumor tissue and break the tumor stroma, overcoming the major challenge of effectively delivering potent drugs for targeted treatment of pancreatic cancer,” says Mao.