Thesis supervisor: Mónika Csontné Kiricsi
Location of studies (in Hungarian): SZTE TTIK Biokémia és Molekuláris Biológia Tanszék Abbreviation of location of studies: TTIK
Description of the research topic:
The general strategy to treat cancer is still based on traditional chemotherapy using small molecular drugs. Although conventional chemotherapy has a decent success rate it frequently causes severe side effects and can even result in the evolution of multidrug resistant cancer phenotypes. Nanoparticle based treatment of solid tumors is regarded as a novel, attractive strategy to improve cancer therapy, since approximately 10-200 nm sized materials are selectively accumulated in tumor tissues due to the passive targeting effect, where many of them, especially metallic particles can exert direct anti-cancer activity. Owing to their large surface area nanomaterials can also serve as controllable delivery platforms of various cytotoxic drugs for active tumor targeting. Our research group investigates the cellular and molecular events behind the anti-cancer activity of different metal nanoparticles in in vitro and in vivo animal model systems. Apart from the direct effects on cancer cells we try to delineate how nanoparticles influence the molecular features of other cell types within the tumor microenvironment as well as on various cells of the immune system
Required language skills: English Recommended language skills (in Hungarian): research work Further requirements: TDK munka