CRC1066: Nanodimensional polymer therapeutics for tumor therapy

In the coordinated research center (“Sonderforschungsberereich”) CRC1066 chemists, physicists, biologists and physicians develop functional nanoparticular carriers and investigate their potential to improve tumor-immunotherapy of the malignant melanoma. 

In three different sub-areas teams from the Johannes Gutenberg-University (JGU) Mainz, the University Medical Center (UMC) Mainz and the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (MPI-P), supported by researchers from LMU Aachen, RWTH Aachen, TRON Mainz and Frauenhofer IMM Mainz, are strongly collaborating to 1) establish facile syntheses of functional nanoparticular carriers for immunomodulation, 2) develop novel precise characterization techniques under (immuno-)biological conditions, and 3) study their in vitro and in vivo (immuno-)performance in pre-clinical immune therapies against melanoma. For that purpose, a combination of (i) immune activation, ii) elimination/ reduction of immune tolerance and (iii) induction of localized inflammation are the key targets to investigate the advanced contribution of nanoparticular drug delivery systems in cancer immunotherapy. 

Our group is particularly involved in projects Q5 „Targeting und immunmodulatory structures and their conjugation strategies onto therapeutic nanocarriers for oncologic applications“ (Tanja Weil, with Till Opatz and Tanja Schirmeister, both JGU), B3 „Treating primary and secondary liver tumors by adressing tolerance inducing M2-macrophages with immunomodulating nanocarriers“ (Lutz Nuhn, MPI-P, with Detlef Schuppan, UMC), B4 „Polymer induced tumor-immunotherapy by in situ activation of antigen presenting cells" (Lutz Nuhn, MPI-P, with Stephan Grabbe and Hansjörg Schild, both UMC) und B16 „Inhibiting azidose mediated immune evasion pathways of malignant melanomas by pH-modulating nanocarriers“ (Tanja Weil, MPI-P, with Toszka Bohn and Matthias Miederer, both UMC).

Contact

Prof. Dr. Tanja Weil

Direktorin

Dr. Seah-Ling Kuan

Gruppenleiterin
Go to Editor View