It is an undeniable milestone for science, academia and the pharmaceutical industry. If this treatment works, it could not only provide a cure for one of the world’s deadliest cancers, pancreatic cancer, but also open up a new therapeutic option for other types of deadly tumours that currently have no cure. This is how José Antonio López-Guerrero, head of the Molecular Biology Laboratory at the Valencian Institute of Oncology (IVO), describes the nanotechnology-based treatment he is working on as part of the European Ulises project. His innovative strategy consists mainly of delivering genetic material to the tumour cells to make them visible to the immune system, thus triggering a kind of “vaccine effect”. The key to this is the use of nanoparticles, similar to those used in the Covid-19 vaccine, synthesised by the Research Institute for Molecular Detection and Technological Development in Valencia. By targeting only tumour cells, this new treatment would also avoid most of the side effects of current therapies such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
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