Multimodality thermal cancer treatment using targeted liposomes and temperature monitoring using photoacoustics and ultrasound

The problem of cancer chemotherapy is the severe toxic side effects on healthy tissues. The use of liposomes as a chemotherapeutic drug carrier can accumulate at the tumour site, but the timely release of the drug has remained as a problem. Liposome systems that respond to hyperthermal temperature is one of the approaches for triggered release of drugs from liposomes. The combined use of drug-containing thermosensitive liposomes and localized heating methods can selectively deposit drugs in the heated region. The effectiveness of the combined treatment will be based on the liposome efficiently releasing the drug load at the target while being able to heat the target at a predefined temperature and period. The technical development from this project will be a platform for CancerRx’s future commercialization, and the developed thermometry function can be added to VisualSonics’ VEVOLAZR system to expand the market need.

Faculty Supervisor:

Michael Kolios;Jahan TAVAKKOLI;Carl Kumaradas

Student:

Hisham Assi;Elyas Shaswary;Celina J Yang

Partner:

FUJIFILM VisualSonics Inc.

Discipline:

Physics / Astronomy

Sector:

Other

University:

Ryerson University