FRANCESCA MORET
Title: Ricercatore a tempo determinato di tipo A
SSD: BIO/06 - Comparative Anatomy and Citology
Address: VIA U. BASSI, 58/B - PADOVA
Phone: 0498276282
E-mail: francesca.moret@unipd.it
Research area
Main research area: Nanomedicine in cancer, drug delivery in Photodynamic Therapy (PDT), cancer therapy combination (e.g. chemotherapy + PDT), tridimensional cell cultures as tools for study drug penetration in malignancies, targeted drug delivery, cancer stem cells (CSCs) targeted therapies, mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) applications in drug delivery. In particular, our efforts are directed toward the in vitro and in vivo evaluation of the potentiality of nanoformulations (polymeric nanoparticles, protein-based nanoparticles, liposomes, gold nanoparticles) specifically designed for the selective delivery of chemotherapeutics and/or photosensitizers to tumors. Ongoing research project: - Hyaluronic acid-targeted double layer nanoparticles for combination of docetaxel-chemotherapy and PDT. Study of combination therapy synergism (Chou and Talalay method, median-effect principle) in monolayers cell culture, tridimensional tumor spheroids and mammospheres (spheroids enriched in CSCs). - Anticancer and anti-angiogenic activity of PLGA-based nanoparticles decorated with folate and aFLT1 anti-angiogenic peptide. Evaluation of the nanoformulations in cancer and endothelial cells, cancer spheroids, human cancer cells xenotransplanted zebrafish embryos. - Study of MSC nanoparticle-loaded tropism toward differentiated and stem cancer cells in 3D in vitro models and in vivo zebrafish embryos. - Exploiting wool extracted keratin-based nanoparticles for the multiple delivery of drugs. Studies of synergism of chemotherapy and PDT. - Folate targeted PEGylated gold nanoparticles as Doxorubucin delivery vehicles: extent of nanocarrier and drug penetration into multicellular tumor spheroids.