Nuovi vettori di boro per la terapia a cattura neutronica

he TRANSBORO project is part of an emerging collaboration between entities from Italy (University of Eastern Piedmont and University of Pavia) and Ticino (Exeris Bio) to develop new approaches for the radiological treatment of oncological diseases for which current therapies are unsatisfactory. Although there is an entrepreneurial fabric and research institutions potentially able of tackling the issue, we believe that the level of collaboration needs to be increased to generate both a critical mass that can address wide-ranging issues and an added value through the transfer of knowledge to the use of new technologies in the clinic. In addition to the scientific aspect, the program area needs highly qualified professionals in the biochemical and biomedical fields. The project therefore also aims to meet this challenge by recruiting university graduates whose training will be enhanced by the expertise of the partners involved, integrating a research approach with knowledge and skills relating to technology transfer processes. During the project and regarding the research organizations, it is planned to match the personnel recruited for the project with graduates in the chemical-pharmaceutical field, to further increase training activities. The overall objective of the project concerns the development of new boron vectors for boron neutron capture therapy or BNCT. BCNT is an innovative form of radiotherapy that exploits the ability of a boron isotope to selectively destroy cancer cells by irradiation with low-energy neutrons. The availability of accelerators as sources of neutron beams suitable for therapy is stimulating the search for new boron vectors, as boronophenylalanine (BPA) or borocaptate (BSH), molecules approved for clinical trials, do not always give satisfactory results. TRANSBORO's scientific objective is to develop new boron vectors following two approaches. As the development of new drugs requires a long, complex, and expensive process, TRANSBORO aims first to develop new formulations that improve the delivery of the two boron vectors in use today to tumor cells. To this end, it will be necessary to use, in addition to the boron vectors already approved for clinical use, other components that meet the same requirement, so that not a new chemical entity but a different formulation will be generated. This will facilitate the authorization process to bring the new formulations into clinical use. In particular, the focus will be on the preparation of nanoparticles. Part of the activity will be devoted to the preparation and evaluation of new compounds that could potentially be used for this therapy. From what has been said above, the results that will be obtained in this second part are not expected to have a direct industrial spin-off, since the time required for approval of a new molecule for clinical use goes beyond the project timeframe. However, it is believed that, should promising results to be obtained, they could still generate positive spin-offs for the companies involved in the project and thus for the area in which they are located, as well as consolidating the path towards even more extensive cross-border collaborations. The partners involved include Italian research institutions that have long and well documented experience in the subject, and a Ticino company that has shown interest in the topic, enabling the implementation of a collaboration that aims to pave the way for more extensive cross-border cooperation. The outputs will be new formulations, at different TRLs, that have shown promising results in the project's pre-clinical studies and that can be proposed as mediators of BNCT. Their characteristic feature should be the ability to selectively transport large amounts of boron into the tumor cells, so that neutron irradiation can target the tumor with substantial sparing of healthy tissue and in the shortest possible time. BNCT is rapidly expanding in many countries around the world, including Italy, where two clinical centers are planned to be operational within five years. In Japan and China, the treatment is already a reality, with borate substances approved by the respective national licensing bodies. The development of borated compounds with greater efficacy would pave the way for the treatment of more patients and broaden the scope of application to many tumor types resistant to conventional therapies. Finally, the educational aspect should be emphasized. The topic in question is strongly inter- and multidisciplinary, allowing the training of researchers capable of mastering skills in different fields and of dialogue with specialists from various scientific areas.