Statistics show that one in three people develops cancer and one in four dies from it. It is clear that there is an urgent need to develop new therapeutics that are able to act more selectively on tumour cells. Polymer-anticancer drug conjugates are nano-sized medicines where anticancer drugs are covalently bound to a polymeric platform. Due to the hyperpermeability of tumour vasculature, they are able to accumulate preferentially in the tumour tissue (passive targeting). The linker between the drug and the polymer is designed to be cleaved following endocytic uptake by tumour cells. A number of polymer drug conjugates have now entered clinical evaluation and they are showing considerable promise.

Recently we have suggested the use of a single polymeric carrier to simultaneously deliver the combination of endocrine therapy and chemotherapy for the treatment of breast cancer. This conjugate was markedly more effective than the conjugates carrying individual drugs or their mixture.

My main interest is to elucidate the exact mechanism of action of these nano-sized constructs at cellular level.

Heath, F., Newman, A., Clementi, C., Pasut, G., Lin, H., Stephens, G. J., Whalley, B. J., Osborn, H. M. I. and Greco, F. (2016) A novel PEG–haloperidol conjugate with a non-degradable linker shows the feasibility of using polymer–drug conjugates in a non-prodrug fashion. Polymer Chemistry, 7 (47). pp. 7204-7210. ISSN 1759-9954 doi: 10.1039/c6py01418f Ravishankar, D., Corona, G., Hogan, S. M., Spencer, J. P. E., Greco, F. and Osborn, H. M. I. (2016) Thioflavones as novel neuroprotective agents. Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry, 24 (21). pp. 5513-5520. ISSN 0968-0896 doi: 10.1016/j.bmc.2016.09.006 Feula, A., Tang, X., Giannakopoulos, I., Chippindale, A. M. , Hamley, I. W., Greco, F., Buckley, C.P., Siviour, C. R. and Hayes, W. (2016) An adhesive elastomeric supramolecular polyurethane healable at body temperature. Chemical Science, 7 (7). pp. 4291-4300. ISSN 2041-6539 doi: 10.1039/C5SC04864H Ravishankar, D., Watson, K. A., Greco, F. and Osborn, H. M. I. (2016) Novel synthesised flavone derivatives provide significant insight into the structural features required for enhanced anti-proliferative activity. RSC Advances, 6 (69). pp. 64544-64556. ISSN 2046-2069 doi: 10.1039/C6RA11041J Baker, B. C., Higgins, C. L., Ravishankar, D., Colquhoun, H. M., Stevens, G. C., Greco, F., Greenland, B. W. and Hayes, W. (2016) Multifunctional, biocompatible, non-peptidic hydrogels: from water purification to drug delivery. Chemistry Select, 1 (8). pp. 1641-1649. ISSN 2365-6549 doi: 10.1002/slct.201600249 Sartain, F., Greco, F., Hill, K., Rannard, S. and Owen, A. (2016) Emerging nanomedicine applications and manufacturing: progress and challenges. Nanomedicine, 11 (6). pp. 577-580. ISSN 1748-6963 doi: 10.2217/nnm.16.17