Single Review on past events

As this year the University of Konstanz celebrates 20 years of partnership with the University AI.I. Cuza in Iasi, Romania, the Zukunftskolleg participated to the festivities with an extraordinary Jour fixe on October 16. Silvia Mergenthal (Vice Rector, International and Equality Opportunities) and Giovanni Galizia opened the session, before Marilena Manea talked on “Targeted cancer chemotherapy: Peptide-based anticancer drug delivery systems”.

Marilena Manea represents the perfect link between Konstanz and Iasi: born in Romania, she studied chemistry and physics at the University AI.I. Cuza from 1995 until 1999, followed by master studies in enzymology and biotechnology. In October 2000, she came to Konstanz to do the experimental part of her master thesis. Her doctoral thesis, which she defended in 2006, was also carried out at the University of Konstanz. After that she worked as a postdoc in the Department of Chemistry, before becoming a Zukunftskolleg Fellow in 2008. One of her major research interests is the development of targeted cancer chemotherapeutics, in particular peptide-based anticancer drug delivery systems.

Cancer is a major public health problem and the second leading cause of death. Marilena Manea aims at developing a cancer chemotherapeutic approach that targets the tumors with peptides. The most common treatments of cancer are surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy. However, in the case of advanced or metastatic cancer, chemotherapy is still the main therapeutic approach. Mainly due to their lack of selectivity, the administration of free chemotherapeutic agents (i.e., conventional chemotherapy) is followed by side effects like a decreased production of blood cells, immunosuppression, nausea and vomiting, digestive problems, hair loss etc. Therefore, the development of an alternative targeted chemotherapeutic method, providing increased selectivity and decreased systemic toxicity, is of interest for Marilena Manea.

In case of the targeted chemotherapy, the anticancer drug is attached to a so-called targeting moiety, for instance a peptide, which specifically binds to its receptors expressed on the surface of cancer cells. Thus, the hybrid cytotoxic compound (i.e., anticancer drug-peptide bioconjugate) enters the cancer cells by a receptor mediated way. It has been found that several regulatory peptides have membrane-bound receptors on different types of tumors. One of these peptides – that the chemist uses in her work – is the Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH). GnRH receptors are highly expressed on cancer cells, with limited expression in healthy tissues; hence, they are important molecular targets for cancer therapy. GnRH derivatives are employed as targeting moieties for the attachment and subsequent delivery of anticancer drugs to tumors expressing GnRH receptors. In her work, Marilena Manea employs modified GnRH peptides to reach the best results in targeting the tumors and reducing the side effects of chemotherapeutic agents. But that´s what makes her research also highly difficult and surely will take her yet some more years to find a targeted chemotherapeutic agent with potential applications in humans.

In the end of her talk, she thanked the University AI.I. Cuza and the Zukunftskolleg for supporting her work and was looking forward to further collaborations between Konstanz and Iasi.