Circumventing Drug Delivery Problems in Advanced Pancreatic Cancer Treatment

This research aims to develop an injectable polymer-based platform to enable minimally-invasive targeted delivery of drug-loaded nano particles. Studies have shown that polymer-stabilized gas microbubbles are effective in enhancing an ultrasound image, especially those involving cancerous tumors. These contrast agents can serve a dual purpose when designed to encapsulate a drug within the shell, providing both diagnostic and therapeutic applications. The current gold standard treatment of non-resectable pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) is gemcitabine (GEM), which is administered systemically. However, response rates are low because the tumor environment inhibits the drug, especially the stroma surrounding the tumor. We hypothesize that GEM-loaded microbubbles injected intravenously will pass through the stroma and, when exposed to ultrasound (US), will burst to form nanoshards (n-Sh) which will lodge within the pancreatic tumor tissue, undergo sustained release of encapsulated GEM, and lead to cancer cell death through targeted therapy.