| Cancer is one of the most fatal diseases in the world. More than 10 million cases of cancer are reported every year. It is responsible for one in 4 deaths in the United States. The agents that are currently used for chemotherapy fail to differentiate between the cancerous and normal cells leading to numerous adverse side-effects. Owing to their toxicity, there is limitation to the amount of dose that can be administered. Due to the lack of specificity and restriction of dose, it sometimes becomes very difficult to achieve an effective concentration within the cancer affected tissues.;One of the purposes of this proposal is to evaluate various drug delivery systems utilized in cancer therapy or diagnosis for genotoxicity. If a drug delivery system is found to be genotoxic, we propose to modify these genotoxic systems so as to reduce or completely eliminate their genotoxicity. We also propose to test certain raw materials used in cosmetic industry on a regular bases for genotoxicity. The other purpose of this study is to develop a dendrimer based drug delivery system that would specifically knock down CD44 in cancerous cells. Once CD44 is knocked down, we plan to treat the cancer cells specifically using a chemotherapeutic drug, Paclitaxel attached to PPi dendrimer. |
