SYNTHESIS OF MIPs FOR CANCER DIAGNOSIS AND MANAGEMENT

There is an unequivocal clinical demand for new and better diagnostic methods that enable the early and reliable detection of disease, e.g., for various cancers, such as small cell lung cancer (SCLC), and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer`s Disease. Ideally, such diagnostic methods should enable disease diagnosis at a pre-symptomatic stage, to allow early therapeutic intervention, as well as being amenable for use in a prognostic sense and for the routine monitoring of disease. At the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, we synthesise and exploit a range of functional organic polymers designed for the selective capture of organic molecules present in complex media, e.g., biomarkers of disease present in biofluids. Polymers of relevance include molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs),¹ SERRS-coded macromolecules² and microporous polymer microspheres.³ This lecture will present an overview of disease diagnosis, prognosis and monitoring, together with specific examples from the Cormack Group at Strathclyde concerning the synthesis of MIPs in appropriate physical formats and the exploitation of the materials within the healthcare sector.^4,5

References

1) Beltran A., Borrull F., Cormack P.A.G. and Marcé R.M. (2010) Molecularly-imprinted polymers: Useful sorbents for selective extractions. Trends Anal. Chem. 29: 1363-1375.

2) Salsamendi M., Cormack P.A.G. and Graham D. (2013) Template-directed synthesis of uniformly-sized silver nanoparticles with high colloidal stability. New J. Chem. 37, 3591-3594.

3) Fontanals N., Marcé R.M., Borrull F. and Cormack P.A.G. (2015) Hypercrosslinked materials: Preparation, characterisation and applications. Polym. Chem. 6, 7231-7244.

4) Rossetti C., Świtnicka-Plak M.A., Halvorsen T.G., Cormack P.A.G., Sellergren B. and Reubsaet L. (2017) Automated protein biomarker analysis: On-line extraction of clinical samples by molecularly imprinted polymers. Scientific Reports 7, 44298.

5) http://biocapture.mah.se