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CANCER STEM CELLS AND
ONCOLOGY RESEARCH
11th International Conference on
Journal of Medical Oncology and Therapeutics | Volume 3
Soraia Fernandes et al., J Med Oncl Ther 2018, Volume 3
TESTING THE RESILIENCE OF
CANCER STEM CELLS TO MAGNETIC
HYPERTHERMIA AND HEAT-MEDIATED
DRUG DELIVERY
Soraia Fernandes, Teresa Pellegrino, Sabrina Janoschek,
Preethi B Balakrishnan, Binh T Mai, Giorgio Stassi and
Matilde Todaro
Italian Institute of Technology, Italy
Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are well known for being responsible for
tumor regression and metastasis. In particular, quiescent CSCs,
kept at a non-proliferating state, have been identified in many human
malignancies as the subcellular tumor type that causes resistance to
current chemotherapy. Available chemotherapeutics attack the cells
by blocking their division and replication, resulting ineffective for the
eradication of those cells that rarely divide. Therefore, an efficient cancer
therapy must act also on quiescent CSC in order to avoid tumor relapse.
In this study, we have investigated the potential of magnetic hyperthermia
in combination with a chemotherapeutic agent (Doxorubicin) to eliminate
colorectal CSCs (CR-CSCs), expressing high levels of CD44v6 markers,
withdrawn from patient. Preliminary results from our research suggest
that these cells are sensitive to heat under certain magnetic hyperthermia
conditions. Therefore, we have been exploiting the use of magnetic iron
oxide nanocubes (IONCs) developed in our group, loaded or not with
doxorubicin, to study their effect on CR-CSCs. We hypothesize that under
the severe effect caused by the heat generated by the IONCs, which
kills most of the cell population, quiescent CSCs will struggle to survive,
thus starting to divide and being more susceptible to the action of the
doxorubicin released from the nanocubes. The obtained results using
this cell model revealed that the combined effect of doxorubicin and heat
might lead to more efficient CSCs elimination, encouraging the use of
such smart nanoplatforms for further studies.
Soraia Fernandes has received her PhD degree,
in Natural Sciences from the University of Re-
gensburg (Germany) and in Chemistry and Ma-
terials Science and Technologies from the Uni-
versity of Genoa (Italy), in 2016. She is currently
a Postdoctoral associate in the research group
of Dr. Teresa Pellegrino at the Italian Institute of
Technology (Italy). Her research focus is the bi-
ological assessment of magnetic nanoparticles
as heat mediators and/or drug delivery systems
for the development of an effective treatment
against cancer.
BIOGRAPHY