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LATVIAN

BIOMEDICAL

RESEARCH AND STUDY CENTRE

RESEARCH AND EDUCATION IN BIOMEDICINE FROM GENES TO HUMAN

Project title: Targeting pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma-on-a-chip with aptamer-guided extracellular vesicle delivery

Project No.: lzp-2024/1-0206

Period: 1st January 2025 – 31 December 2027

Project costs: 300 000,00 EUR

Principial Investigator: University of Latvia

Collaboration partner: Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Centre

Principal Investigator BMC: Dr. biol. Karīna Narbute

Project summary:

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a highly aggressive cancer with poor prognosis, accounting for more than 90% of pancreatic malignancies. Despite significant advancements in the screening and therapy of various solid cancers, PDAC remains the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. The dense stromal environment and tumour heterogeneity contribute to PDAC’s chemoresistance, making it one of the most chemoresistant cancers. Current therapeutic options for PDAC are with limited effectiveness. Targeted drug-delivery towards tumours could improve the efficiency of the therapy, improve outcome in advanced cancer stages and reduce systemic side effects. One of such approaches is by using cancer-specific aptamers conjugated to extracellular vesicles (EVs) to guide the drug delivery. Therefore, this project aims to develop targeted drug delivery approach using GreenB1-EV conjugate towards human PDAC-derived organoids in an organ-on-chip platform, which we intend to achieve through a series of defined objectives:

  1. Development of PDAC-on-chip and validation of GreenB1 specificity and affinity towards PDAC organoids and normal pancreatic cell cultures in vitro.
  2. MSC-EV isolation and characterisation.
  3. Conjugation of MSC-EV with GreenB1 and validation of the conjugate.
  4. Characterisation of the MSC-EV-GreenB1 conjugate effects in a PDAC-on-chip.
  5. Project management, communication and dissemination of results. To achieve the goal of this project, we have assembled an interinstitutional team from Pharmacy Science Centre Preclinical Research laboratory of the University of Latvia (UL PRL) and LBMC with an expertise in cell biology, molecular biology and microfluidic systems. The ultimate goal of this project is to contribute to the development of a targeted therapy approach for PDAC and lung cancer using aptamer-based drug-delivery.

Information published 02.01.2025.