Recently, Prof. Chang Shi's team from the Department of General Surgery (Subspecialty of Thyroid Surgery), Xiangya Hospital, Central South University (CSU), has made significant progress in the treatment of anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC). Entitled "Nanoclay Drug-Delivery System Loading Potassium Iodide Promotes Endocytosis and Targeted Therapy in Anaplastic Thyroid Cancer,” the research outcome was published inNano Letters(IF=10.8), a division of the American Chemical Society (ACS). It provides an innovative solution for the clinical treatment of ATC and has a significant clinical translational prospect. AR. Huang Peng and Prof. Chang Shi, Department of General Surgery, Xiangya Hospital, CSU, are the first author and the corresponding author respectively. Xiangya Hospital, CSU, is the affiliation of the first author and the first corresponding affiliation.
Prof. Chang Shi's Team Published Original Research Findings on Treatment Strategies Targeting the Primary Foci of Anaplastic Thyroid Cancer inNano Letters
As a special pathological type of thyroid cancer, anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC) is extremely aggressive and fatal. Currently, there are no effective therapeutic options. And the median overall survival from the time of diagnosis is only 4.8 months, with 100% disease-specific mortality, presenting as the main cause of death related to thyroid cancer. Airway obstruction, asphyxia and distant metastasis caused by rapidly proliferating primary foci of ATC still account for the majority of death tolls in patients.
In order to develop therapeutic methods targeting primary foci of ATC, Prof. Chang Shi's team has established collaborations with outstanding expert teams from the School of Minerals Processing and Bioengineering, the School of Materials, the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, etc., CSU, to explore realizing the targeted therapy for primary foci of ATC through nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems. In this study, Prof. Chang Shi's team designed the nanoparticle KI@DOX-KaolinMeOH, a nanoclay drug-delivery system loading potassium iodide, which showed excellent biocompatibility and could be enriched at the primary foci of ATC instead of taken up by normal thyroid cells. KI@DOX-KaolinMeOH could activate caveolae-mediated endocytosis as well as enhance autophagy in ATC cells by inhibiting the PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway, so as to achieve the specific killing effect of ATC cells, which is expected to provide a new strategy for the treatment of ATC primary foci.
Using potassium iodide as a highly effective targeting strategy for primary foci of ATC
Prof. Chang Shi's team has long been engaged in clinical and basic research on thyroid cancer and related diseases. They have placed a strong emphasis on interdisciplinary research, fostering collaborations between medicine and engineering. Leveraging resources like the Clinical Research Center for Thyroid Disease in Hunan Province, Hunan Provincial Engineering Research Center for Thyroid and Related Diseases Treatment Technology, the two provincial disease-specific research platforms above, the team is committed to advancing clinical and scientific research in the field of thyroid tumor-related diseases, contributing to the growth and development of this discipline. In the past five years, Prof. Chang Shi's team has won a number of national, provincial, and ministerial research projects, published 25 high-level papers in international journals, declared and obtained 18 national invention patents, and some of its research achievements have been successfully commercialized.
The team extends a sincere invitation to doctors and postdoctoral researchers in clinical medicine, biomedicine, artificial intelligence, chemistry, materials and other fields.
Link to the Article:https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c01984
Source: Xiangya Hospital of Central South University; Author: -
