Lecture | Tuesday Talks: Science Insights
How to develop cancer drugs with less side effects
- Date
- Tuesday 9 April 2024
- Time
- Location
-
Gorlaeus Building
Einsteinweg 55
2333 CC Leiden - Room
- Atrium, 1st floor
How to develop cancer drugs with less side effects
Cancer is a widespread disease, and anticancer treatments come with their load of side effects. One way to treat cancer with less side effect is to use locally activated prodrugs. Prodrugs activated by visible light irradiation of the tumor using a laser are very promising and already in the clinics, where it has demonstrated great antitumor efficacy and way lower side-effects for patients than conventional treatments. However, the clinically approved light-activated cancer treatment, called photodynamic therapy, is based on O2 activation in the tumor tissue. Sometimes this O2-based mechanism does not work, particularly in tumors where the O2 concentration is low. Photodynamic therapy may also generates tissue necrosis, which is efficient to treat the tumor but leads to and inflammation and tissue clearance.
Light activation by rupture of a chemical bond
Bonnet’s group develops ruthenium-based photoactivated chemotherapy, a type of light-activated anticancer molecules that are activated by rupture of a chemical bond. In the prodrug, interactions with biomolecules such as DNA or proteins is hindered by a photocleavable protecting group. Upon light irradiation, this group is removed, thereby regenerating the biologically active compound capable to destroy a tumor. The development of these kind of drugs requires chemical synthesis but also photochemical and photobiological studies in vitro and in vivo. All take great advantage of the interdisciplinary environment available at the Faculty of Science.
About the speaker
Sylvestre Bonnet is a professor at Leiden University. He has over 15 years of experience in bioinorganic chemistry and photochemistry and develops light-activated anticancer drugs. The Bonnet lab focus in particular on how light-activated drugs work under hypoxia, a low-O2 condition in tumor that is particularly challenging to treat. Bonnet’s research is highly interdisciplinary, and combines synthesis of metal-containing (pro)drugs, in vitro studies under normoxia and hypoxia, and in vivo studies of the biosafety and antitumor efficacy of the prodrugs.
Join this edition of Tuesday Talks: Science Insights!
Everyone who is interested in this edition's topic is welcome. Please let us know if you are attending.
I will join!Programme
The programme of the Tuesday Talks: Science Insights is:
| 15.30 hrs | Take a seat |
| 16.00 hrs | Introduction by dean Jasper Knoester |
| 16.10 hrs | Lecture by speaker, followed by Q&A |
| 17.00 hrs | Drinks |
About Tuesday Talks: Science Insights
Tuesday Talks: Science Insights is Leiden Science’s monthly dose of research inspiration from our staff, for our staff and all others curious minds. Every second Tuesday of the month from 16:00 hrs till 17:00 hrs, drinks and meet up afterwards till 18.00 hrs.