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Technological challenges of biomembrane-coated top-down cancer nanotherapy

Nature Reviews Bioengineering volume 1, pages 156–158 (2023)Cite this article

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Cancer nanotherapy suffers from low-yield delivery that is imposed by tumour pathophysiological barriers. Top-down drug delivery strategies, including exosomes and cell membrane-coated particles, can improve safety and efficacy owing to the innate biointerfacial properties of these platforms. Here, we discuss the technological challenges that need to be overcome for their clinical implementation.

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Fig. 1: Comparison of naturally secreted exosomes and engineered cell membrane-coated nanosystems.

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Acknowledgements

J.M.J.M.R., J.C. and A.C.P.S. acknowledge the financial support from the Fundacão para a Ciência e a Tecnologia I.P. (FCT)-Research and Development Project grant PTDC/BTM-MAT/4738/2020. J.C. acknowledges financial support from the European Research Council-ERC Starting Grant 848325. The authors thank C. Alvarez-Lorenzo and P. Makvandi for their input and critical revision of this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ToxOmics, NOVA Medical School | Faculdade de Ciências Médicas, NMS|FCM, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal

    João M. J. M. Ravasco & João Conde

  2. Research Institute for Medicines (iMed.ULisboa), Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    João M. J. M. Ravasco

  3. Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Technology, Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Coimbra, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    Ana Cláudia Paiva-Santos

  4. LAQV/REQUIMTE, Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Coimbra, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    Ana Cláudia Paiva-Santos

Authors
  1. João M. J. M. Ravasco
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  2. Ana Cláudia Paiva-Santos
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  3. João Conde
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Contributions

J.M.J.M.R., J.C. and A.C.P.S. contributed to the conceptualization, writing, figure drawing and editing of the current manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Ana Cláudia Paiva-Santos or João Conde.

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Competing interests

J.C. is a co-founder and shareholder of TargTex S.A. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.

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Ravasco, J.M.J.M., Paiva-Santos, A.C. & Conde, J. Technological challenges of biomembrane-coated top-down cancer nanotherapy. Nat Rev Bioeng 1, 156–158 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44222-022-00008-2

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