As a result of the significant disruption that is being caused by the COVID-19 pandemic we are very aware that many researchers will have difficulty in meeting the timelines associated with our peer review process during normal times.  Please do let us know if you need additional time. Our systems will continue to remind you of the original timelines but we intend to be highly flexible at this time.

Congratulations to the authors of Depletion of collagen by losartan to improve tumor accumulation and therapeutic efficacy of photodynamic nanoplatforms for winning the DDTR Best Paper of the Year award for 2019.

Summary: It is critical to achieve efficient delivery of photosensitizers throughout the tumor sites in order to obtain therapeutically relevant photodynamic treatment (PDT) efficacy and desired clinical outcomes. However, synthesis and deposition of dense collagen in the tumor extracellular matrix (ECM) result in poor penetration and accumulation of photosensitizer within the tumor tissue. Herein, we develop a losartan pretreatment strategy to deplete tumor collagen, thereby improving the tumor accumulation and PDT efficacy of Chlorine 6 (Ce6) loaded periodic mesoporous organosilica (Ce6-PMO) photodynamic nanoplatform. After pretreatment with losartan in vivo, the tumor collagen I fraction in tumor tissue was significantly reduced by 53% and tumor uptake of Ce6-PMO subsequently administered via peritumoral and intravenous routes was remarkably enhanced. Further, combination of losartan and Ce6-PMO provided the best therapy efficacy, and the suppression rate of tumor volume was measured up to 82%. This study introduces a highly promising synergetic strategy to improve nanoplatform-based PDT efficacy for cancer therapy.

This paper will be free to access until April 27, 2020.

Congratulations to the authors of Tumor growth inhibition by mSTEAP peptide nanovaccine inducing augmented CD8+ T cell immune responses for being awarded Paper of the Year by the CRS Nanomedicine and Nanoscale Delivery Focus Group.

Summary: TumOpen in Tabor antigen-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) directly play a critical role in immunologic tumor inhibition and eradication. To address whether peptide nanovaccine could enhance specific CTL response, we established a syngeneic prostate cancer mouse model with TRAMP-C2  cells, followed by the treatments with either mouse six-transmembrane epithelial antigen of the prostate （mSTEAP） peptides emulsified in incomplete Freund’s adjuvant (IFA) via subcutaneous (SC) injection or nanovaccine carrying an identical amount of mSTEAP peptides via IV or SC injection. Meanwhile, the mouse models were treated with either CD8b mAb followed by nanovaccine treatment, free mSTEAP peptide, or empty PLGA nanoparticles. Immune responses in these mice were examined using cytotoxicity assays at 14 days after treatment. Tumor size and survival in various treatment groups were measured and monitored. The results demonstrated that mSTEAP peptide nanovaccine resulted in tumor inhibition by eliciting a significantly stronger CD8⁺ T cell immune response when compared with the controls. Moreover, the survival periods of mice treated with mSTEAP nanovaccine were significantly longer than those of mice treated with mSTEAP peptide emulsified in IFA or the treatment controls.
 

This article will be free to access until May 11, 2020.

The Oral Drug Delivery Focus Group of the Controlled Release Society has awarded the 2019 Paper of the Year award to the paper by Desai et al., Loratadine self-microemulsifying drug delivery systems (SMEDDS) in combination with sulforaphane for the synergistic chemoprevention of pancreatic cancer. 

 Summary: Pancreatic cancer remains refractory to current standards-of-care. Here, we first report that combination of a classical antihistaminic drug, Loratadine (LOR), and a neutraceutical compound, Sulforaphane (SFN), elicits remarkably synergistic chemo-preventive action on pancreatic cancer cells in vitro. However, LOR belongs to BCS class II exhibiting low solubility and high permeability that results in poor oral bioavailability. To address this limitation, we have developed a self-microemulsifying drug delivery system (SMEDDS) formulation carrying LOR, using Quality by Design approach (globule size, 95.13 ± 7.9 nm; PDI, 0.17 ± 0.04), and confirmed that this nanoformulation provides significantly enhanced dissolution profile of LOR in vitro. Further, the nanoformulation, in conjunction with SFN, provided in ~ 7-fold and ~ 11-fold reduction in IC50 values compared to free drug LOR-SFN combination in MIA PaCa-2 and Panc-1 cell lines, respectively. Hence, our studies successfully demonstrate that a unique low-dose combination of LOR encapsulated within SMEDDS with SFN shows significantly enhanced chemo-preventive efficacy in pancreatic cancer.

This paper will be free to access until May 5, 2020.