Galien Institute

Nanomedicines represent a strong opportunity to offer an answer to unmet medical needs. Among them, biocompatible nanoMOFs are promising material for drug encapsulation and delivery. In particular, they could find application in the treatment of lung diseases, thanks to their unique pH-sensitive aggregation/disaggregation capacity, leading to specific lung accumulation without the need of surface functionalization. However, despite the efforts of the scientific community, the translation of laboratory-based nanomedicine (and thus of nanoMOFs) into the clinic is still hindered by several obstacles. One of them is the lack of in vitro models capable to reproduce the structure and the biological properties of the tumors in vivo, thus often leading to a not accurate preclinical evaluation.

This project will offer an instrument to face this issue. By applying 3D cultures methodologies, we will develop a relevant model capable to mimic the heterogeneity of the lung tumor. Being closer to the clinical reality this model will enable (i) to acquire a more physiological understanding of the barriers to nanoMOFs and (ii) to pre-clinically select the best nanoMOFs for further pre-clinical in vivo assays.