PhD student Joachim Delasoie from Zobi Group published his article on Royal Society of Chemistry Journal “Dalton Transactions” including the cover from the issue of this week. Congratulations!

Here is the brief information about the article:

Slow-targeted release of a ruthenium anticancer agent from vitamin B12 functionalized marine diatom microalgae

“The use of vitamin B12 (cobalamin) as a carrier for anticancer drug has gained momentum over the recent years due to the fact that many cancer cell types require large amount of cobalamin for their proliferation (overexpression of protein transporter and receptor TC(II)/TC(II)-R). Based on the above, we have prepared a new biomaterial designed for targeted delivery of poorly water-soluble anticancer drugs, with a focus on colorectal cancer. Diatomaceous earth microparticles were coated with vitamin B12 as a tumor targeting agent and loaded with different drugs, including a promising water-insoluble and highly cytotoxic ruthenium complex interestingly retained in aqueous buffer and released in lipophilic media. The stability and drug releasing properties of this new biomaterial were assessed under different conditions closely mimicking the human body environment. The increased adherences of the B12 coated diatoms towards colorectal cancer cell line HT-29 and breast cancer cell line MCF-7 were demonstrated in vitro. In both cases, the adherence of the B12 modified diatoms was at least 3 times higher than that of the unmodified ones and was correlated with the increased TC(II)/TC(II)-R expression of the targeted tissue. The results demonstrate that this new biomaterial could be a promising, cheap and ecofriendly solution for the development of drug-releasing tumor targeting vehicles.”

DOI: 10.1039/C8DT02914H

Dalton Transactions, 2018, 47, 17221 - 17232

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2018/dt/c8dt02914h#!divAbstract