Nanomagnetism in cancer treatment: How Iron Oxide Nanoparticles can be used to target therapies to the brain (360G-Wellcome-211489_Z_18_Z)

Iron Oxide Nanoparticles (IONPS) are a class of nanoparticles used in targeting therapies towards tumour sites. The emerging field of nanotechnology has garnered a lot of interest in tumour therapy especially for brain tumours. IONPS can be coupled with an anticancer drug and with the use of magnetic field (Muthana et al., 2015) can be ‘steered’ towards a desired site within the body. This technology would hope to increase the amount of drug concentration to the tumour site which also means that the amount of drug delivered systemically could be reduced. In this project, the student will learn how to use FEMM (Finite Element Mathematical Modelling) to create magnetic array (a special arrangement of magnets) to optimise the magnetic field strength. This will be tested through a range of in-vitro experiments for its efficacy. Laboratory training will include isolating human peripheral mononuclear cells (PBMCs), flow cytometry to examine PBMCs cell viability/cell death following the addition varying concentrations of IONPS. Data analysis will involve using a software called FlowJo (used for flow cytometry) and Prism software to carry out statistical analysis. The student will be able to learn how to operate a confocal microscope, carry out immunohistochemistry and processing tissue samples.