The Department of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the University of Malta has been awarded €200,000 to study and develop a novel combination of drugs which aims to successfully target non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells, while being less toxic to healthy tissue.
This fund (LCeNT), which has been awarded by the Malta Council for Science and Technology under the Technology Development Programme component of the R&I FUSION Programme, spans a period of three years. The research is being co- ordinated by University academics Dr Vanessa Petroni Magri and Professor Anthony Fenech, together with Professor Joseph Galea, consultant cardiothoracic surgeon at Mater Dei Hospital, and in collaboration with the Marseille Cancer Research Centre (CRCM), France.
On Thursday, 9 September 2021, Minister for Research, Innovation and post-COVID Strategy, Hon. Owen Bonnici, visited the labs within which this research is taking place, and was given an update on its progress. Hon. Bonnici said “The government will keep supporting this stupendous talent in research, at the University of Malta, which I am certain that it will be fruitful in the future and will benefit the maltese society”
As Dr. Petroni stated “Lung cancer is found to be the most frequent cancer in Maltese males and 4th frequent cancer in Maltese females. The treatment we are working on consists of 3 medicines combined together and reducing each dose because altogether they are more effective. This is the first time that this type of treatment for lung cancer is being studied, proudly to say at the University of Malta. The study is carried out on cells and not patients, we are still at early stages of research however its proves to be very innovative”
NSCLC is a global leading cause of cancer-related deaths, with a 5-year survival rate of only about 15%, in spite of the currently available treatment.
This project addresses a novel approach to treatment through enhancing the actions of conventional chemical medicines by concurrently also inhibiting the actions of specific genes which are related to the disease. This gene inhibition is being brought about through the use of genetic expression modifiers patented by our CRCM collaborators. This approach aims to target both the tumour as well as reduce its risk of spreading to other organs (metastasis).
All work is currently being carried out on commercially-available lung cancer cells cultured in our laboratory. However, we shall shortly be extending this by studying patient cancer cells taken from NSCLC lung surgeries held at MDH, in order to study how actual patient tumour tissue responds to this treatment. These patient tumour cells will be cultured using special techniques which mimic the tumour 3D structure in a laboratory. All outcomes are being studied using several approaches, including also advanced genetic and protein studies on the treated cells.
Together with the project coordinators, there are currently two PhD students and three Masters students in Molecular Pharmacology, working on this research. Another three recent BSc graduates in Medical Biochemistry, also worked on part of this project for their undergraduate studies.