Cooperating with researchers from Italy, Turkey, Australia and South Korea, Dr. Ehsan Nazarzadeh-Zare publishes an article entitled “Photoactive polymers-decorated Cu-Al layered double hydroxide hexagonal architectures: A potential non-viral vector for photothermal therapy and co-delivery of DOX/pCRISPR”. A Damghan University faculty member, Dr. Nazarzadeh-Zare said, “Cancer is today the second cause of death worldwide, only after cardiovascular diseases. Of different types of cancer, breast cancer is the second major cause of death in women, after lung cancer, and thus, cancer treatment is a priority for the world community; of course, various types of drugs have entered the market to delay the progression of cancer tumors.” As Dr. Nazarzadeh-Zare added, “Doxorubicin is a common chemotherapy drug for the treatment of breast cancer that increases the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and inhibits the activity of topoisomerase enzymes (i.e., enzymes correcting the structural problems of DNA during the processes of replication, transcription, and gene recombination by making temporary single- or double-stranded cuts) in order to induce cell cycle arrest and disrupt tumor proliferation. However, the use of doxorubicin is limited due to drug resistance.”
Dr. Nazarzadeh-Zare told, “Gene therapy is a technique for introducing genetic materials into the target cells in order to replace mutated genes with healthy ones. Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) are part of the genome of prokaryotic organisms (e.g., bacteria) and are related to the adaptive immune system. This powerful gene-editing tool is employed in various fields, such agriculture and biotechnology.” He also told, “The aim of our research was to synthesize hexahedral Cu-Al LDH decorated with ortho, meta, and para photoactive bioactive nanoparticles of poly (phenylenediamine) as a photoactive carrier for simultaneous delivery of doxorubicin and CRISPR. The experimental results indicated that photoactive nanocarriers with high efficiency were effective for the simultaneous delivery of gene and drug via a photothermal method, which would help deconstruct tumors and treat breast cancer.”
The article has been published in the Chemical Engineering Journal with an impact factor of 16.74. The article can be accessed through https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S138589472203234X.
