Wlodzimierz Stanczyk
Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
Title: Synthesis of the first POSS cage - anthracycline nano-conjugates
Biography
Biography: Wlodzimierz Stanczyk
Abstract
The antitumor drugs Doxorubicin (DOX) and dauno-rubicin (DAU) are important anthracycline antibiotics of a broad spectrum of action, widely used in therapy. Unfortunately they can cause also serious cardiovascular side effects leading to heart failure. Thus, currently a focus is being made on synthesis of nanoparticles bearing DOX and DAU that should limit exposure of drugs to normal cells. Pathways, including encapsulation e.g. in poly(lactide-co-glycolide, poly(trimethylene carbonate-co-glutamic acid) and solid lipid nanoparticles were studied. On the other hand a number of carriers was applied for chemical bonding of doxorubicin that include polymeric and dendrimer nanoparticles or fatty acids. Polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes (POSS) have been surprisingly missing from the above list of anthracycline nanocarriers, although octameric POSS is considered a next generation material in biological fields 1,2. Herein we present the synthesis of the first two, according to our knowledge, T8-POSS-doxorubicin (Scheme 1) and daunorubicin conjugates. T8-POSS cage can be easily functionalised and its small size (~1.5 nm) makes it an unique carrier, compared to the ones studied till now in binding anthracyclines. It is also well known to facilitate cell penetration, the important feature in drug delivery processes, while on decay forms only a harmless silicic acid - Si(OH4)3.