Lorena García also successfully defended her PhD thesis entitled “Introducing gold nanoparticle bioconjugates within the biological machinery”, the next day Friday July 19. In this case, the PhD Committee was formed by Prof. Wolfgang Parak (Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany), Prof. Jesús M. de la Fuente (Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain) and Dr. Julia Lorenzo (Institut de Biotecnologia i Biomedicina, UAB, Spain).

Congratulations Joan and Lorena!!!

The Gaceta Médica article (in Spanish) was published on April 25, 2013: “Las AuNPs reducen la toxicidad de los quimioterápicos sobre células sanas”.

http://www.gacetamedica.com/noticias-medicina/articulo.aspx?idart=747053&idcat=793&tipo=2

The Diario Médico article (in Spanish) was published on April 29, 2013: “La nanotecnología usa metal precioso con fin biomédico”

http://biotecnologia.diariomedico.com/2013/04/29/area-cientifica/especialidades/biotecnologia/investigacion/nanotecnologia-usa-metal-preciosofin-biomedico

At this major event, seven conferences took place in parallel, as well as a vast exhibition, one-to-one meetings and an industrial forum. ImagineNano gathered the global nanotechnology community, including researchers, industry policymakers and investors.

In this framework, Prof. Puntes was invited on a double feature. First, to give the talk “Detoxifying Antitumoral Drugs via Nanoconjugation: The Case of Gold Nanoparticles and Cisplatin” at the NanoBioMed conference. And secondly, to give a dissemination talk for the general public within the Societal Activities of ImagineNano: “Nanoparticles before nanotehcnology (cosmogenic, geogenic, biogenic and -unnoticed- antropogenic origin)”. Both talks took place on April 24.

NanoBioMed program and info: http://www.imaginenano.com/SCIENCE/Scienceconferences_BioNanoMed.php

Societal Activities program and info: http://www.imaginenano.com/SOCIETY/Society_Imaginenano.php

Developed through a long interdisciplinary collaboration with research groups from the Santiago de Compostela University, the University of Valencia and the Sant Pau Hospital, the results on the analysis of this drug delivery system, including in vitro and in vivo (mice) bio-distribution studies, has recently been published in PLoS ONE: “Detoxifying Antitumoral Drugs via Nanoconjugation: The Case of Gold Nanoparticles and Cisplatin”.

The paper presents the success of the specially designed nanocarriers in decreasing the treatment toxicity, essentially by driving the drug more efficiently to its target, the tumor, and thus avoiding undesired side effects. But it is also geared to present and advance the field of nanocarriers for delivering platinum-based drugs more broadly. For example, an editorial published almost simultaneously, “Nanoparticles: the future for platinum drugs or a research red herring?” (by N. Wheate, Nanomedicine), did a great job in summarizing the hopes and challenges that lie in this type of cancer treatment approach. And notably, our work on delivering cisplatin with gold nanoparticles addresses all the points raised, framing the strategy and its results on a more general, and more useful, pharmacological perspective.

J. Comenge, C. Sotelo, F. Romero, O. Gallego, A. Barnadas, T. García-Caballero Parada, F. Domingues and V. Puntes (2012). Detoxifying Antitumoral Drugs via Nanoconjugation: The Case of Gold Nanoparticles and Cisplatin, PLoS ONE 7(10): e47562

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0047562?imageURI=info:doi/10.1371

(open access article)

Link to article (in Catalan, access by subscription)

This story, being an excellent example of technology transfer and entrepreneurship in the biotechnological field, was fully covered by the local newspaper La Vanguardia in the article “Gold in nanotechnology”, by Rosa Salvador, published on May 2, 2012.

Read the full article here (in Spanish)

The show was aired on April 28, 2012. Here you can find the show in full length:

• Informe Semanal at the RTVE website
• YouTube version