A Drug Delivery Breakthrough, Catching Pancreatic Cancer Earlier

Samir Mitragotri, PhD (The Mitragotri lab, Harvard) discusses a novel breakthrough his lab recently published in which an engineered particle referred to as a “backpack” can robustly adhere to macrophage surfaces and regulate cellular phenotypes in vivo. Understanding how these approaches work is not only interesting, it is a refreshing and innovative approach to drug delivery we will be seeing more of soon. 

 Also, Pancreatic Cancer Action (PCA) founder and pancreatic cancer survivor Ali Stunt reviews life-changing interventions taking place to diagnose pancreatic cancer earlier and improve survival. PCA has succeeded in campaigning for many life-changing interventions in terms of direct referrals for CT scans for general practitioners, direct referrals for pharmacists, and breaking down barriers so that the general public can better understand symptoms and risk factors. 

Enjoy Listening!

Additional reading

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://gco.iarc.fr/today/data/factsheets/cancers/13-Pancreas-fact-sheet.pdf

https://www.mitragotrilab.seas.harvard.edu/

Kapate N, Dunne M, Kumbhojkar N, Prakash S, Wang LL, Graveline A, Park KS, Chandran Suja V, Goyal J, Clegg JR, Mitragotri S. A backpack-based myeloid cell therapy for multiple sclerosis. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2023 Apr 25;120(17):e2221535120. 

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