Cancer therapeutics and diagnostic agents often show unfavorable pharmacokinetic behavior and tissue distribution. The goal of intelligent delivery systems is to redirect the therapeutic or diagnostic agents to tissues or cells of interest and to improve their pharmacokinetics in order to engage the target more effectively. Delivery systems can be made of natural or synthetic materials that are safe and biocompatible, typically in the form of nanoparticles, polymers, hydrogels, biomimetics, and so on.

Intelligent delivery systems are designed to respond to specific extrinsic cues such as near-infrared light, ultrasound, or radiation, or to pathology-intrinsic signals, for example acidic or hypoxic microenvironments, or a tumor-specific enzyme. Thus, cytotoxic agents such as chemotherapies can be administered systemically at high concentrations with minimal adverse effects, whereas spatially or temporally controlled drug release elicits maximal toxicity on cancer cells. Other reagents are delivered to the abnormal tumor-specific vasculature or stromal cells to remodel the tumor microenvironment, such as the hypoxia or extracellular matrix. Intelligent delivery systems also hold great promise to focus the action of immunotherapeutics on target cells (e.g., T cells, dendritic cells) or tissues (e.g., tumor, tumor-draining lymph nodes, other lymphoid tissues) for enhanced efficacy and safety of cancer immunotherapy.

The goal of this focus area is to foster the development of novel intelligent delivery systems for improved cancer diagnosis and therapy. Joint efforts from diverse expertise in bioengineering, materials engineering, chemistry, physics, cancer biology, immunology across EPFL campus are devoted to this highly interdisciplinary field for designing the next generation intelligent delivery systems.

Themes in this program:

• Molecular design of intelligent therapeutics and vaccines
• Responsive nanomedicine
• Biomimetic materials and polymers
• Cell-based delivery systems
• Local and targeted immunotherapies