Breast Cancer, New Drugs and Innovative Therapies under Study

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Projects
The research projects carried out within the Department of Pharmacy, Health and Nutritional Sciences at the University of Calabria fall within the Health specialization area and involve three researchers.
The first two projects aim to identify new pharmacotherapeutic strategies for breast cancer which is the second most common cause of cancer death for women. Considering that still today many patients develop forms of drug resistance during treatment with antiestrogens such as tamoxifen, there is an urgent need to define innovative and personalized therapies that ensure better efficacy of the drugs used in terms of recovery and quality of life for patients. The two studies follow the innovative approach of predictive and personalized medicine and aim to develop new drugs that will also help to contain the high costs of treatment for these diseases.
In particular, the second study investigates the cell/stroma interaction in the tumour microenvironment and the role of the stem component.
The third research project aims to understand how the metabolic alteration and reprogramming of the neoplastic cell can induce the propagation of stem cells and interfere with drug resistance. The study is aimed at assessing mitochondrial biogenesis and function since, in recent years, mitochondrial metabolism has been shown to have a critical role in tumour initiation, progression and metastasis.

Financial Resources
The projects are funded by the NOP Research and Innovation 2014-2020 under Action 1.2 “Researcher Mobility”, Call “AIM-Attraction and International Mobility of Researchers”, with a total budget of 577.761,48 euro for the recruitment of three researchers on fixed-term contracts.

Impact 
The projects aim to identify new drugs to improve the current scenario in the pharmacological approach to breast cancer, in line with the excellence of the Italian pharmaceutical industry which is capable of translating research into innovative products, thus contributing to the competitiveness of the entire economic-industrial system. The research activity is in the field of oncology, which combines well with the capacity of Italian companies to respond effectively to the growing demand for health and quality of life for cancer patients. The studies will also have the advantage of promoting networking and collaborations between research centres.
An additional competitive advantage of the third study is that it will also test FDA-approved drugs, whose pharmacokinetic and safety profiles have been previously determined in humans, in phase I-III studies. The repositioning of FDA-approved drugs has the benefit of significantly reducing the time required to move from drug discovery to human trials and clinical use.

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06/10/2021